Jobberknoll Feathers
by Green Eyed Lady
Summary: Once upon a time, a Sirius Black first-person memoir. After the event of OotP, DISCONTINUED. Possibly to be taken down shortly. Many apologies.
1. An Overprotective Canine and James's Lil...

_'There are places I remember  
All my life, though some have changed  
Some forever, not for better  
Some have gone, and some remain  
All these places had their moments  
With lovers and friends I still can recall  
Some are dead and some are living  
In my life, I loved them all'  
- 'In My Life', The Beatles (Lennon/McCartney)****_  
  
Disclaimer : The following is not purely original fiction, but rather characters, settings, and situations as created by J.K. Rowling. _No money is being made of this piece of fanfiction and can not be reproduced for any purposes but strictly private entertainment. _  
  
Jobberknoll Feathers  
  
Chapter One - An Overprotective Canine and James's Lily  


  
My father came back to live with me when I was six.  
  
He died when I was seven.  
  
Perhaps that's why I'm so overprotective, and the thought of something happening to those I love frightens me to death.  
  
I don't grow attached to too many people; maybe I'm too scared. I love very few; I trust very few. Out of the four I loved and trusted in my teenage years, three lived in my dormitory at Hogwarts, and the other was my godmother Arabella.  
  
"Sirius," she once said to me as we shelled crops next to the through. I was maybe fifteen years then. We had loved the farm when I was younger. Arabella liked the independence; as for me: forty acres and horses to boot! What else could a boy ask for?  
  
But we were getting older as of the time of this conversation; Arabella grew tired more quickly and I was city-eyed - I wanted to see the _world_. I had big dreams that harvesting just wasn't filling.   
  
"It's natural to grow attached to things. That's human nature. But you love them too _much_, lad, and it's going to hurt you when they die or grow apart. They're only things, Sirius. Worldly things."  
  
"They're not things," I protested. "They're _people_."  
  
"People. They change too. I'm getting no younger. You and your friends are growing up. When you leave school, you'll be pulled separate ways. In a few years some of you might get into a serious relationship with a girl -"  
  
I snickered at the absurdity. "Not us, 'Bella. I date for fun, Pete's too shy, Remus just _won't_, and James thinks girls are another species."  
  
"One always thinks you're all grown," retorted Arabella, who had a store of such fortune-cookie sayings for every occasion. "What about when you get different jobs?"  
  
I hesitated a moment, keeping my eyes on my work. "What, we're going to work all _day_, _every_ day?"  
  
"Humph." Arabella exchanged a full bushel for an empty one. "There's the threat of war, lad. The Dark Lord gains more power all the time."  
  
I clenched my teeth, willing myself not to shake. Arabella was putting a voice to my fears, and my anger at my guardian grew as dread increased. "He's an old quack," I said, with far more certainty than I felt. "Someone ought to drown him in the duckpond."  
  
Arabella said nothing, her typical response when she thought I was getting rash and "talking nonsense".  
  
I blinked back tears as her words repeated in my head. It was the summer between my fifth and sixth year; I was getting too old to cry every time I started worrying.  
  
But the thought of losing my friends or Arabella terrified me. Every time I thought about it, I practically _lived _their deaths. I could actually feel the helplessness as Arabella died before me, or the unbearable loneliness at James's absence. Professor Ellicha says I have too vivid an imagination (McGonagall says the same thing, but I don't think it's complimentary coming from her). Soon I was crying outright, and Arabella put an arm around my shoulder.  
  
That's one advantage of the farm over London. When I cry here, no one knows but Arabella and the chickens.   
  
*  
  
James thought the farm was the coolest thing on earth. The two of us met at a Quidditch match when we were seven, and got along so well that our families hooked us up several more times. (I think they were relived that we entertained each other; the burden was off of them.) Soon I was neglecting chores and James was spending more time here than at his own house.   
  
The Potters were a good-natured family, but rich and had been too long. His mother was a little snobbish, but slipped me the best apple turnovers you ever tasted, and Mr. Potter was always happy to let James come over.  
  
I think that was the chief charm for James - we didn't live in a stuffy mansion and no one fussed over a little dirt.  
  
_Everything_ absolutely enthralled him. He loved the fields, clambouring up the loft, making forts from bales of hay, hunting eggs, currycombing horses, swinging off the oak-rope, and sleeping on a cot off the porch roof. I was still one part bewildered and two parts miserable from my dad's death, but nothing was more distracting than this fun companion who found everything amazing and wasn't a bit ashamed to show it.  
  
James awoke me to an important fact the day he said in wide-eyed wonder: "You actually kill your own food?"  
  
I had never really thought of us _killing_ the animals before. It was just a part of eating. Now, I was horrified. Arabella and I were _killers_, the same way the manticore had killed my dad. It took a long time for 'Bella to convince me that if we didn't hunt and slaughter, we'd die. I got a long talk on the circle of life and the food chain that evening, and was dismayed at what I perceived - we couldn't _live_ without _death_?   
  
When it was sunny, I was your normal kid, but I had a little secret pastime for rainy days when I locked myself in my room. I developed the most perfect ecosystems I could possibly wrangle, ruthlessly killing off Species X to save all of Species Y. I never shared this with anyone save James. Thank goodness. I was pretty embarrassed about it when I got older and learned a bit more.   
  
I was fanatical about death. If Arabella caught a sniffle, I'd force her into bed. Temper tantrums can be quite persuasive. If she had to kill a pig, I'd go inside and claim a sudden urge to clean. (Arabella saw right through that.) If there was a funeral, I instantly had a stomach sickness (and this didn't require too much acting). She humoured me, probably figuring I'd grow out of it. I never did, but I matured in it.  
  
At one point, James concluded that he just _had_ to ride a horse. Arabella's "boys will be boys" philosophy led to use going out so James could learn hands-on - by ourselves. We had two pieces of advice: If any horses were hurt, she'd cut up our limbs to make catnip; if we rode Black Thunder, she'd hang us upside down in the well by our toes.  
  
Mind you, James was a brilliant flyer. But on the ground, he was a bit of a klutz. And his graceful expertise did not - did _not_ - extent to horses. To make matters worse, he fell in love with Pebbles, a feisty brown-and-white fireball of a crossbreed. (Naturally, I loved Pebbles as well, but I felt generous and rode the dapple-grey Silver Key.)   
  
Pebbles was surprisingly placid. She let James saddle clumsily. She let him climb on. She let him get flustered. She let him give wrong commands.   
  
_Then_ she spooked.   
  
Off went the pair, Pebbles galloping off the trail, James holding on for dear life, and - typical of my friend - laughing as he was tossed.   
  
I ordered Key to move, but she rolled an eye to me. I hopped off just in time to see James fly through the air, landing with a sickening thud, crack, and holler.  
  
I winced and then screamed myself, out of reflex. Rushing to him, I thanked the grass for being so soft. He was sprawled on the ground, limbs askew, and his leg in an angle no leg should ever be. He was also crying after the shock passed - James was a tough kid, don't get me wrong, but when you're eight (and two-thirds, we were quick to assure others) and have a broken leg, you _will _cry.   
  
"Sirius - I'm okay -" he said through gritted teeth as I grew hysterical " - just - just get Arabella - I think my leg's on fire -"  
  
Fire! I hated fire. I ran for Arabella.  
  
As you probably would guess, Arabella did not cut us up for catnip, although both horses were quite upset, and after she healed his leg, James was resting on the couch (Arabella's orders) laughing and generally seeing it as a great joke, colouring the incident highly.  
  
"It was pretty graceful, wasn't it? Just sort of flew up there, and I could see _everything _- just sort of flew - and then came down - and only this" - he motioned to his mending limb " - left to show for it."  
  
James had thoroughly enjoyed it. I was miserable on several counts: first, I felt like a complete baby for having made such a big deal out of it and screaming more than James had, and secondly, just the image of that blood and bone had me flinching. And James's face twisted with pain ran through my mind's eye again and again. I hated it. The helplessness - I hadn't been able to help - and the fact he was hurt.   
  
You can imagine how I felt later having a friend who got broken bones as a pretty regular thing - every month, in fact. Learning my dorm mate and latest partner-in-crime was a werewolf wasn't too traumatic. Learning what the transformations consisted of was. I actually - gasp - did research on this subject. I pestered Madam Pomfrey. I'm sure she lived to rue the day I found out Remus's condition. I interrogated Remus, against his will; he preferred not to talk of it. I don't know why I pressed on if I hated what I heard so much, but I did. I had to know.   
  
I used to stare at James and Peter in awe. On full moon nights they'd be sound asleep sooner or later. I _never_ was. I practically lived through the night with Remus. I imagined I could hear him. I stared out the window at the Whomping Willow for hours, desperate for the night to end. I'd rush to the hospital wing first thing that morning, no matter how many times Pomfrey waved me off.   
  
James and Peter made light of it. They were concerned, of course, but until we had finished our Miracle Something-Or-Another, they considered it Remus's problem. They couldn't do anything right then; might as well get some sleep. Had to be awake to get his History of Magic notes the next day, after all (he said sarcastically). I couldn't; I never slept those nights.   
  
And I became a nightmarish sort of overseer for Rem. He would tease me, either amused or exasperated, about my tendencies. I watched over him like a hawk. "Eat." "Sleep." "Rest." "I'll do your homework." "Are you resting?" "Go to the hospital wing." He used to pretend I had placed an Imperius Curse on him, or he was some sort of robot, blinding obeying (I'm hard to not listen to - useful skill). "Yes, master. Your wish is my command" when he was too tired to think up anything more original, and stuff far more creative when he wasn't. I ignored all of it, so I don't remember.   
  
Apart from physical health, I also grew upset when it hit me that on full moons, Remus wasn't _Remus_. I was possessive. I liked things exactly the way they were. I detested change. I developed a sort of mania against the moon, blaming it for taking my friend. The girls in our year and House sometimes challenged us to cards, and during Hearts I would _always_ try to collect the hearts and Queen of Spades, just for the satisfaction of shouting: "Shot the moon!" I lost a lot of games that way.   
  
This started my fanatical streak on change. I hated when anyone wasn't acting as they should. I remember on one particularly stormy day at Hogwarts, Snape came into the Great Hall at dinner completely soaked. I enjoyed the sight for a while, until I visited Hagrid later. He said Snape had gone outside to the edge of the forest, remembering that his dog was still outside, and Hagrid was busy helping Professor Kettleburn.  
  
"And - and drowned it?" I asked.  
  
Hagrid looked bemused. "No, he brough' 'im back inside. Dried 'im off an' all."  
  
I sat in a horrified sort of trace. Hagrid snapped his fingers in front of my face.  
  
"Sirius!"   
  
Peter, who had accompanied me, laughed. "Poor Sirius. Simply can't stand the thought of Snape acting like a human being… can you, Sirius?"   
  
"No!" I cried, jaw hanging somewhere along my collar.  
  
Even Hagrid chuckled. Peter was nearly choking.  
  
"Don't suffocate yourself," I told him automatically.  
  
"Would it help if I tol' you he lef' the floor muddy?"  
  
"No!… well, yeah, _that_ sounds like him." I guess they were mocking me, teasing me in a friendly sort of way, but I barely noticed.   
  
I think I was the hardest campaigner when we were looking for some way to help Remus. When we couldn't find a cure, James and Peter aimlessly looked around… maybe a way to numb the pain… maybe easier healing charms… I was adamant, however. If I couldn't stop the transformation, I would be there with him for it.   
  
Still, I was nearly sick when I saw the actual change, and the effects firsthand. The change itself was horrific; I knew why Remus hadn't wanted us to see it. I looked away.   
  
But I couldn't afterward. I was there to help him, and I'd do that _first_. What we all first noticed was his right shoulder, which was heavily mangled and bleeding and twisted from where he had charged the walls before we arrived. It looked even worse than James's leg had. Some sort of blabbing was coming out of my mouth, I guess, 'cause Remus told me faintly:   
  
"Sirius, calm down." (Those words were said a lot throughout my life. "Black, slow down, shut up, sit down, calm down.") "It's not bad… it'll get fixed."  
  
James had to drag me by the arm from the Shack. "You do a swell job of trying to get us caught," he grinned.   
  
I was so shaken and my mind so far away that his words washed over me.  
  
"Sirius says he's glad to be of service," Peter said helpfully.  
  
I was still in for the worst, however. A few weeks afterward Remus caught me alone, saying that if this kept up Pomfrey would be suspicious.  
  
"At how… in one piece… you are?" I asked sarcastically.  
  
"Yes. Next time, I need you to bang me up a bit. We can have a wrestling match or something; whatever it is, as long as I get injured." He proceeded with a few details. All I heard was that I would have to purposefully inflict pain on him. I nearly fainted from the thought.   
  
"No, Remus, I can't."  
  
His words of reason were lost on me. I gave him a fourth of my attention, concentrating on how to end this discussion. I needed a wild card often in these conversations, when even my friends get impatient with my whims. Luckily, I have one; it's the name my mum was so kind as to bestow upon me.  
  
"You're just not serious."  
  
"Yes I am."  
  
Got 'im! I slammed the table with my fist. "No! _You're_ Remus; _I'm_ Sirius. Get it straight, Lupin!"   
  
Everyone denies that's funny. Remus buried his head in his arms a moment, muffling a sound that didn't seem quite like a groan of superiority. "Right," he said at last. "Back to the topic at hand."  
  
Damn. I can never distract him. And, of course, he won. Remus always wins the big battles.  
  
When we became Animagi, I was a huge black dog. James burst into hysterical laughter when he saw the complete transformation for the first time.   
  
"Oh - Merlin's - beard," he managed between great gasps of breath, practically rolling on the floor. " - Sirius - I knew it -"  
  
I glanced at a mirror in our secret room changed back. Unlike with James, changing back was the easy part for me. It was becoming the dog that was tricky at first. "You know," I said, with great dignity, "most people aren't so amused when they see a Grim."   
  
Peter then laughed as well. Remus didn't; he was too keyed up over what might happen if we did it wrong.   
  
That set James off worse. He apparently hadn't thought of that. "Sirius - a Grim - this is rich - this is great - a _Grim_."  
  
"Yeah, well, I'm happy, too," I said sarcastically. "Now everyone'll shriek when they see me."  
  
"Everyone does that anyway," Peter ribbed.  
  
"The greatest part - Sirius - canine - perfect," James grinned. "Overprotective canine. You must've done the spell right; it nailed you perfectly, Snuffles." James always called me Snuffles since my phobia of anyone catching a cold.   
  
"Don't call me Snuffles!"  
  
"Look! He growls, too!"  
  
I glared.  
  
"But really." James turned to Peter and Remus for backup. "Don't you get it? You know how overbearing he is - 'Grab your cloak!' 'Wash your hands!' 'Don't talk!' 'Don't move!' 'Eat your veggies!'."  
  
"That's true…" Remus acknowledged.  
  
James gave me a half-smirk. "You'd make a great dad sometime, Sirius. If any witch would dare marry you. Perhaps you'll have to adopt the kid."  
  
I pretended to throw things at him, including hexes. If this all sounds like James was being a bit of a git, he wasn't, really. That was just his way of showing friendship. I think I was about as bad. And I knew that at anytime I needed him, he'd be there for me, and he'd help me through the not-so-lighthearted times when calling me "Snuffles" would not cut it. I sort of liked his barbs. It was different before I met him; Arabella is wonderful and I owe her a lot, but she _is_ old-fashioned.   
  
Then the horrific happened in our sixth year. Well, several horrific things happened that year - we were children of a war and daily saw our classmates lose their relatives, including some of our own, and that was also the year that I nearly destroyed my friendship with Remus permanently (and I still don't pretend to understand his logic, but that's another story). The _real_ horrific thing, however, was that my confident assurance to Arabella regarding Marauders and the fairer sex was smashed to blistering bits: James found girls might be another species, but they were an amazing one. Or, to be more precise, one girl was amazing: a quiet, focused, tough Muggle-born Gryffindor witch in our year, with fiery red hair and big brilliant green eyes. Yes, you guessed it: Her name was Lily Viola Evans.   
  
How it happened? I don't know. Lily was a fun classmate, nothing more, to me. We talked, we teased, we studied, and we completely forgot about the other when they were out of sight. One Friday Night Fling, it seemed to slowly change. James was attacked by those little demons that no Defence Against the Dark Arts course ever seems to warn you against - teenage hormones.   
  
Before I knew it, one day Jasmine Whitby comes up to me, asking: "Where is she?"  
  
"She who?" I asked blankly, thinking of Katya Peterson or Florence van Durischk, the two girls that came immediately to my mind whether I liked them or not. They were _the_ girls of our year.   
  
"You know. James's girlfriend, you dolt."  
  
"James's - James's _what_? _Who_?!" I hollered, earning a reproving glance from Professor McGonagall as she passed us in the corridor. I ignored it.   
  
"Lily, of course!"  
  
You could have shoved a flobberworm down my throat and I doubt I'd've noticed. Wait - James - _my_ James, _my_ best friend in the whole wide world,_ my _unofficial brother - and Lily were _going out_?  
  
Ashen-faced, I shakily asked James about it that evening in the common room with my usual lack of tact. Peter rolled his eyes in exasperation, all too used to my way of asking such things, and Remus gave me a look that mimicked McGonagall's eerily.   
  
"There's nothing like that between Lil and me," James assured me, perhaps a bit too quickly. "That's just the Jorkins-want-to-bes getting excitable. Lily's just a good friend - she is a good friend, right?" I had never seen James look so vulnerable and in need of a vote of confidence as he looked about at us, waiting for us to answer his question. Usually James gave the encouragement to _us_. I nodded, simply because I wanted to return him the favour. Remus and Peter affirmed it as well, probably partly for the same reason I had, and probably partly because they did like Lily reasonably well.  
  
I hated Lily. I detested Lily. I wanted Lily to vanish with a _poof_ of smoke and brimstone and little pink clouds and quacking noises. 'Bye-'bye.  
  
I hated and detested and despised those who took it for granted that the two were going out, telling them off heatedly, repeating James's word and usually dragging in a red-faced friend to the circle of gossipers who said otherwise to confirm it. But I left Lily well enough alone until the day later in the year, when James, in a would-be casual tone, confided to me that he had asked Lily to be his girlfriend "for real".   
  
I forced my mouth shut - I had been gaping outright - and swallowed.  
  
"Lil's special," James whispered, mostly to himself, but of course the two of us were one - most people called both of us "Blotter", right?   
  
With those two innocent words from my lovestruck, starry-eyed (well, I'm exaggerating a bit now) my attitude to Lily turned from fairly amiable to downright cold. I snubbed her, gave her a cool shoulder and shrug, pretended to contract sudden deafness when she spoke, ignored her words and actions, and generally left everyone else to entertain her - although James did a good job of it all by himself. In short, I acted like a git. Severus-Snape-levels of rudeness.   
  
But I couldn't help it. I would nearly cry every night, because my best friend was being dragged by a redheaded elf to a world I could not follow, and he was changing and growing too fast for me to keep up. James wasn't a complete part of me anyone - he wasn't even a different person. He belonged to someone else as well.   
  
"Sirius, you've got to quit this!" Peter cried after a month or two of this behaviour.   
  
"Quit what?" I asked waspishly, stuffing half-finished essays into my schoolbag. I knew what he was going to say; he and Remus had been talking in undertones too often lately, and I had caught the whispered word "Lily". Somehow, I knew they weren't discussing Herbology.   
  
"Quit treating Lily like she's some sort of - of - of garbage on your shoe, or something! It's terrible, Sirius - d'you ever hear yourself?" As usual when Peter got excitable, his voice turned rather high-pitched and squeaky. I knew by this he was highly upset.   
  
"No, don't want to."   
  
"Padfoot, you're making James miserable," Remus spoke up. In contrast to Peter, his voice was a little sharp, but quiet and calm. His composure sometimes scared me. "Have you been watching lately?"  
  
"Gets too disgusting when he's staring at Lily with hearts in his eyes."  
  
"Those hearts are very pretty," Peter said solemnly, but his joke fell flat as Remus pressed on.  
  
"Well, look past that and see how he acts. He doesn't know what to do - he keeps worrying about your reaction while dying as he thinks of breaking up with Lily. You may not have noticed, but he hasn't slept in two days and he's skived off six classes in three days."  
  
This caught my attention. James never shared my insomnia and was dedicated enough to classes to be made prefect (okay, so it was probably more the fact that he was really talented and had a good memory). Actually, I had always thought of James having a perfect life, far removed from the mortal world of worries and fears. I think we all did. I should've known better, but I guess I hadn't. "N-No - he… what?"  
  
Remus repeated it, very deadpan.   
  
"How d'you know all this?" I asked, a little defencively. James was my best friend, and I was supposed to know most about him.   
  
Peter rolled his eyes. " 'Cause we pay attention." Furthermore, I was to discover James and Remus had been having long talks of their own that had excluded me, another thing completely new and foreign to me. I was used to being in the thick of all our affairs.   
  
This awoke me enough so's that evening at dinner, I politely asked Lily if she'd like me to pass her a second helping of the stew. "It's very good," I said, forcing a painful smile.  
  
Lily looked skeptical, probably wondering how I had poisoned it. She accepted politely but tried to hide it under her plate. Oh, well. It was a start, and James was glancing at me in surprise, but not displeasure. Over the next few days, as I kept up my more civil act, I realised Remus and Peter were right - he did look much more happy and at ease when I didn't pick a fight with her at every turn. In fact, he was walking on air.   
  
But I still didn't like her, and I felt my stomach churn at the sight of her. I grimaced at the thought of spending prolonged periods of time with her. I left defending her against "Mudblood-haters" to the others. However, I make a real effort to be nice, hoping that perhaps I'd find out what James found so incredible about her.   
  
I hadn't found it by the end of sixth year, when James's mother was reported missing. He was distraught for days, growing more and more pensive as the suspense slowly ate away at his complexion. By the time we found Mrs. Potter was dead, it was almost a relief, although James and I were terribly upset.   
  
I had rarely seen James cry before, but he did now, quietly and nobly - always so noble: he permitted himself to cry, but only when we were alone, usual only the two of us, although the other two saw their share of his spells as well. I think Peter and Remus were of more help; as usual when faced with death, I cried as well.   
  
By the end of year he seemed to be recovering amazingly well. We knew, however, what was on his mind, and it was on ours as well. The last night of that year we were all awake in our dormitory and gave up the pretense of sleeping. We huddled together in front of our fire (it was a chilly June evening, the remnants of a winter that was reluctant to leave us alone).   
  
"Write," Peter ordered abruptly, as we stared either into the flames or the window outside by turns.   
  
"We'll write," we echoed dully, all feeling a little empty. We were facing a summer apart, and knew we were stronger together than separate, and it was to be a summer we smelled more war in, more losses, more confusion, more fear for us as we grew up against our will into this battle-torn world.   
  
"If any of you can come to the farm…" I added. It was doubtful. James had to help his father, Peter his mother, and Remus was stuck with his uncle, who was damned if he let his nephew have an inch of room to breathe.   
  
"We'll try it," Remus said when no one else replied. It was a hollow promise. Richaden Lupin would never let him, and Remus wouldn't've anyway - he was still distant with me since the incident with Snape.   
  
I nodded anyway. Remus was pale; I knew he hadn't slept the past week at all.   
  
There was another long silence. I tried to break it with: "Aren't we a cheerful lot?" but it grated on the mood like a badly tuned musical saw. I fell to thinking again of what we all were - was the attack on Mrs. Potter the wedge that would eventually envelop us all?   
  
"If anything ever happens to me," I spoke up suddenly, this time more serious (and with no intention of my horrible serious/Sirius puns), "I want you to all take care of Arabella - promise me. Please."  
  
All three met my eyes and promised solemnly. I had never felt so grateful before, or realised before how lucky I was to have sincere, loyal friends.   
  
"If I died, watch for my mother and sister," Peter added. "I want to make sure they're always taken care of…"  
  
We all promised again. I thought of Penelope and Plumy Pettigrew. Peter's mother was wispy, paranoid, and sickly - I couldn't confess any great sympathy for her, despite her having been widowed for years. Plumy, his sister, had a mental retardation syndrome that no one had been able to cure. She tried Hogwarts for a year before she and Mrs. Pettigrew decided to give it up - too much trouble and strain on her, and it advanced her very little.   
  
Peter and I glanced at James and Remus, waiting for their requests. Morbidly enough, it was as if we were making our spoken last will and testaments.  
  
"You first, Moony."  
  
Remus sighed almost impeccably and considered it a moment, looking intently into the fire as if for answers. Finally he looked back up to us. "We all know I don't care about my uncle; he can take care of himself. Watch for my sister and her husband, but I think they're okay, too. What I really want, if I'm not around, is for you three to take care of each other and yourselves, don't do anything stupid. I mean it!" he added sternly as I snorted slightly. "No - no - getting yourselves in jail or blowing up London or draining the Atlantic or anything. You all mean more to me than anything now. I couldn't stand it if you weren't happy."   
  
We promised yet again, although I couldn't help but add teasingly: "We're the only ones left for you to care for? You lead a sordid life, Remus."  
  
He half-heartedly pretended to throw a pillow at me. I recognised the look in his eyes as the one he got when thinking of his own parents.   
  
Now we turned out attention to James. The fire cast a half-silhouette of his fine-featured face and distinctive dark hair impressively, making him look far older for a moment. "My - my father, of course. Although he's pretty strong-minded; not sure what you could do. Most of my relatives are dead, but my aunt Lonnie, for instance - watch them for me, please. And - and Lily." He stared fixedly at all of us. "No matter what, make sure Lily's all right. I'd live and die for her and want you to do the same."  
  
My throat tightened. How did Lily get into a conversation of our nearest and dearest? And wasn't James being a little demanding?  
  
_No more than you were, Sirius_, I told myself.  
  
"Of course, James," Remus said quietly. "We will."  
  
"Always," Peter promised.   
  
Three sets of eyes turned, none too discreetly (although I think they tried to) toward me. I swallowed furiously, trying to hide it. Tears sprung to my eyes, but I blinked them back and met James's slate grey ones as heartfeltly as I could. Which wasn't difficult. Lily or no Lily - this was James.   
  
"Yes, James. I would. No matter what."   
  
James sighed, relief crossing his face, but he looked at me affectionately. "Your word is law, Sirius. It's a sure thing, your word."   
  



	2. Cloudy-Cast Future

**Very sincere thanks to: Ayla Pascal, Tarawen, Lavander Ice, Ginny Potter, Silent Onion, Le Chat Qui Garde La Lune, Triskelion, enoimreH, and Iniga.   
  
**_'Hold on to sixteen as long as you can  
Changes comin' 'round real soon 'cause we're women and men...'  
- 'Jack and Diane', John 'Cougar' Mellencamp****_  
  
Disclaimer : The following is not purely original fiction, but rather characters, settings, and situations as created by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made of this piece of fanfiction and can not be reproduced for any purposes but strictly private entertainment.   
  
  
Chapter Two - Cloudy-Cast Future  


  
1977 was a rotten summer. Actually, day-by-day was fairly nice - beautiful weather, ideal farming conditions. But the things that stand out sharply in memory are not the pleasant commonplace occurrences, but the awful disheartening ones.   
  
Some of our best livestock had gotten sickly or dead the past few months. Unable to keep up with the taxes, Arabella had to sell a sizeable piece of land. The crops looked to be good for this season, so we'd probably be able to buy it back, but that's a huge loss of pride for a farmer. Arabella was grim and I was angrily miserable whenever I saw those hateful strangers on our land.  
  
The war went from worrisome to deadly. We'd listen to the radio and feel as if we _must _turn it off, it was too terrible to hear any more, but some strange phenomenon kept our ears pinned to it as if in a trance. We hated the news but felt a dreadful need to listen on to the killings and disappearances and sabotage.  
  
Voldemort scored his biggest victory to date when he killed sixteen McKinnons in one blow. The McKinnons had long since lost their legendary power, but it was still a reeling shock for us and a good tactical stroke for him. He may not have gotten rid of any real danger, but he got us scared silly. How dare someone touch the McKinnons?   
  
Arabella thumped around for days at this news. Mairead McKinnon had been a close friend of hers at school, thus Arabella's grief made her temper increasingly shorter. The cats and I ignored it; her rantings weren't meant for us and we knew it.  
  
Poor Peter didn't realise that for several days, and was rather unnerved by her sullen sulking during his visit. I kept him outside a great deal, partly to put some distance between him and 'Bella, partly to keep him from those blasted books he always carried 'round.  
  
"How's James getting along?" he asked during one of our ramblings by the creek.  
  
I skipped a stone - one, two, three, four-five, six, plop. Pathetic. "Not fantastic. Not bad. You know, how'd you expect him to act." Personally I worried about him, but don't I always?   
  
"Oh." Peter tried to imitate me and managed three. "Just wondering; you know, I've been writing him, but his letters really tell you nothing."  
  
"I wonder if Lily'll notice that," I muttered. I missed James. I wondered if he was visiting Lily somewhere.   
  
"What?"  
  
"Nothing. Mr. Potter's trying to convince him to not take a job after school now; he's really scared something'll happen to James."  
  
"He has enough money to not have to do anything he doesn't want to, career-wise."   
  
"Yeah, but you know Prongs." I skipped another stone. Eleven. Much better. "He'd never just sit around."  
  
"What're you going to do, Padfoot?" Peter spoke sort of hurriedly, as if he wanted to ask before he lost his nerve.  
  
"Arabella asked me to stay at the farm another year after school, said she promises to hire someone to help after then. So I'll do that." Peter glanced edgily over his shoulder, obviously still wary of my godmother's moodiness. I continued carelessly: "I'm not entirely sure what I want to do after that. I just want to live in London. You know what would be cool? Learn about wand-making from Ollivander."   
  
I chuckled, recollecting. "I once tried to take Arabella's wand apart to see how it worked. She nearly killed me. But it was really, really neat." I realised Peter's unnatural silence; he was always a little shy but rarely this quiet - around me, at least. "What about you?"  
  
"Mmmdwmydolmtyfr…" Peter mumbled.  
  
"Gulping gargoyles, Pete, run that tune by me again?"   
  
Peter sighed and said more clearly, but bitterly: "Mother made a deal with one of my father's old Ministry friends. He's wrangled a spot in the Regulation on Experimental Potions Office as his sort of protégée." He skipped another stone, which drowned without much of a struggle. "Merlin's wand, I'm angry with her."  
  
I turned, gaped at him, and swore. "Tell her you won't do it!"  
  
He grimaced. "I can't, Sirius," he said glumly. "You know how they say if Mother gets too upset it might kill her… this isn't just a whim, either. You won't believe this - she's been arranging this since I got my O.W.L.s, Sirius! A whole year she's spent setting up _my _life!"  
  
I sympathized with his outrage, and between us it turned out Peter had to calm _me_ down.   
  
"How can she just control my life like that, though?" he wondered after a few minutes. "Yeah, I planned to take care of her and Plumy, I always would, but… but not at some stupid potions office - " He shook his head. Picking up another rock, he chucked it across the water - it skipped thirteen times.  
  
I stared at him; Peter looked nonplussed at his feat. "You'd better quit, Wormtail, you might smash my skip-record to bits."  
  
Peter managed a small grin at this. "The horror." He picked up a stick and threw it as far as he could, mind still on his predicament.  
  
I tried to distract him. "Anyone know Moony's plans?"  
  
He glanced at me. "Remus? He wants to be an Auror."  
  
"How'd you - " I began, then broke off with an ill-tempered kick at the ground with my toe. Since that stupid incident last year, Remus had gotten very distant with me, rarely even joking about my over protectiveness anymore, let alone, I guessed, mentioning such minor details as what he wanted to do with his life.  
  
"He's been working on his application," Peter continued, with an apologetic expression at my reaction. "He's not sure he'll be allowed though, because… you know…"  
  
"Because of a bunch of prejudicial bloody gits," I finished matter-of-factly, but growled all the same, causing Peter to wince. "Well, it's true! If it were anyone else with his skills they'd be _begging_ him to join…"  
  
"I suppose you know this from experience," Peter said, a little sharply.  
  
I reddened. "What d'you mean by that?" Not very convincingly.  
  
"They've sent you a letter, haven't they? And James?"  
  
James and I hadn't wanted to bring this up with Peter, who was a little sore about his own magical abilities, which were a little - not much, but enough - below average. He caught onto theory and logic instantly, but in actual performance he often struggled. "Erm."   
  
Peter threw another stick.  
  
"But I'm not, you know," I said quickly. "I want to help the effort, but not over there. Too many political messes." It was the truth. Arabella tore Ministry news to pieces shrewdly, and after so many years of it I was as wary as her.  
  
There were moments of silence. I chucked stones; Peter fished at the edge for minnows. Then he bounded up. "Let's run to the rope, Padfoot."  
  
I wasn't the world's most perceptive person, but I was sensitive enough to know Peter was still a little depressed. Still, us Marauders don't stay downcast very long. We're too resilient to not bounce back. I chased down after him. "You're going in the river from that swing again, Pettigrew!"  
  
Peter snorted in reply. "At least I'll have the sense to get out, unlike _some_ people I know…"  
  
*  
  
Emily Kertcher was the proverbial "odd girl out"…  
  
…okay, so I admit, I'm not quite sure what "proverbial" means, even now, and dictionaries are annoying… I suppose I'll ask Remus at some point, but while I'm on a roll writing this, I want to keep it this way…  
  
…but you get the idea. She was a Hufflepuff girl in my year, distant and very much out of things. So naturally, since I was only close with the Marauders and only companionable with the larger crowd James always seemed to attract, I didn't know her very well at all. She was the girl who walked through the corridors with a bag on her shoulders askew, head down, eyes faraway with her own daydreams, speaking distractedly to anyone who approached her.  
  
I don't think that it was she was unfriendly and shy; she simply had a tendency to live in her own little world, and looking back on it now, I think I know why. She was so much older than us, mentally and emotionally. Mature. She saw things we didn't; she thought above the curve.   
  
James was on amiable terms with her, but then, wasn't he with the whole world population? (Well, exempting Snape and Voldemort from that mix, and we would include Wormtail, if he'd known long enough.) Remus got along well with her by turns, but Emily had a habit of being chummy with a person for a week or so and then seeming to forget she even knew them. And Peter…  
  
Due to Peter and Emily's none-too-pleasant relationship, Emily and I had a similar one. In second year Emily had begun to chew off Peter for something I had yet to find out, and said somethings about "little nasty prats who think they own the earth 'cause they hang around big friends and're cruel to younger people".   
  
Peter, usually pretty mild-mannered, retorted with something about "shabby little girls whose heads weren't big enough for a full brain with their snub noses always in a book with no bloody friends at all", which was somewhat rich, as some of those things applied to him as well.  
  
After this happy exchange, I jumped into the fray, staunchly defending Peter. Then Emily said something to the effect of how she had always wanted to take me down a peg or two, Black, "the boy with a big mouth and not a whole lot of action backing it and no temper control", which was nearly as hypocritical as Peter's statement, as Emily wasn't always the picture of restraint.  
  
Naturally, I had to demand of Remus why he talked with her, and he replied that everyone had a bad day at some point, and that Peter and I had caught Emily on one, and that she was really a very nice person, intelligent and compassionate - and since Remus was having a bit of a bad day himself, added something like "so if it bothers you so much, you really ought to find something else to do than monitor everyone else's conversations and find some of your own".  
  
See? was my reasoning. Emily always caused discord with us.   
  
But I was about to find there was a lot more to Emily than a little weird git.  
  
*  
  
_Sirius, _the letter in my Transfiguration book read, in my seventh-year,  
  
_Once you asked me  
Why I laughed at you  
When you were just being yourself  
And I don't particularly care for  
Your personality  
And I'll tell you off  
For being mean to others  
So now I'm going to answer you:  
I know, that deep down,  
Behind your front of flamboyant confidence  
That you're secretly nice  
And even caring and compassionate  
Boys! Almost always afraid to show that,  
Save their souls.  
Oh, and…  
I just think you're funny, all right?   
My warped sense of humour…  
Have a nice day, and good luck   
With McGonagall's detention  
(I've heard that she needs someone  
To get all the cat hairs off her cloaks -  
You'll probably have to do it without magic.  
Well, you asked for it, didn't you?)  
Emily  
(who is wondering why she bothers)  
_  
I held the note in my hands a while in wonderment, staring at it, re-reading. _What the bloody hell? _  
  
How had she got it in my book without my knowing? Was I that distracted with McGonagall? Why had she written it in poetry form? Merlin's beard, why had she written it at _all_? Why bother to tell me I'm "secretly nice"? Was this another of her twisted jokes that made sense to no one but herself?   
  
Why did I feel rather pleased I had gotten it?  
  
*  
  
Annoyingly, this idiotic little note stuck in my head for days, always lurking in the back of my mind, ready to spring to the fore and often, and so finally I decided to ask someone about it.  
  
Lily Evans was still a thorn in my side, still as attached to James (and vice versa, the worst part of it, to my mind) as before holiday, so I decided to make use of the fact she was around. I could also put on a show of feeling more friendly and comfortable with her, even if I really wasn't.   
  
"Say, Lily," I spoke up one night in the common room. There were a few crucial minutes we would be alone before I would find an excuse to leave; James was talking with McGonagall about Quidditch tryouts, Peter was in the library, and Remus was going through the tunnel to his place of nightmares, more commonly known as the old Asher house, even more commonly known - now, at least - as the Shrieking Shack. Lily was scribbling madly, but not urgently.   
  
"Hmm?" Lily was still wary about me, but to her credit, she covered this quite well. Our conversations were detached, but at least thankfully casual.   
  
"Let's just suppose - hypothetically, of course - "  
  
"Of course," she agreed, eyes on her parchment, ears on me.  
  
" - that I saw, say, James, get a note a day or two ago in Transfiguration, in his book, and discovered it was from Nancy Turpin."   
  
In my defence - I've often been accused of deliberately saying this to sabotage James and Lily's relationship - the thought of getting Lily worked up never crossed my mind. I used James because he was the closest in the school I could find to me, and Nancy, a Ravenclaw a year behind us, because she was the closest to Emily.  
  
Lily raised an eyebrow. In Lily's defence, I doubt her mind jumped to think James was doing anything untrustworthy. I'm rather positive her mind did swing immediately to me, wondering if I might be lying. "And?"  
  
"Well, what d'you reckon that would mean?" I don't have any defence for how utterly thick I was being right now. All I can say is that it never occurred to me Lily wouldn't take it the way I asked her to - hypothetically.  
  
There was a pause. Lily's quill moved more slowly. "Meaning what?" Her tone was carefully controlled, but, after all, considering the three friends I had over the past few years (and while Lily was good, she was no where near how well Remus could keep his voice even), somehow I was able to tell there was a sharp warning hidden in that casual question.  
  
"It was in the form of an unrhymed poem, I saw that," I explained. "There was no greeting or closing except names and commas. From what I saw, it was short and mundane - Em-Nancy warned him about detention, told him he had it coming to him, mentioned how James was a nice person, a funny person… and the two of them never seem to exchange too many words verbally. D'you think Nancy might have a thing for him?"  
  
As I said, I am not lying to you here, and it only hit me right _now_ as I finished that last sentence - _Sirius, you idiot - Lily goes out with James! And you're saying Nancy Turpin might fancy him!_ I felt the colour leave my face as I realised that I just might have caused something big.   
  
Unfortunately, I was right.   
  
There was an even longer pause, only broken by the cackling of the fire. Most of the school was having an informal ball in the Great Hall. Only some of the younger students were there, and while they were being unusually noisy, since they had the run of the place for once, even under the eye of the Head Girl, their voices, laughter, bangs, crashes seemed far-off. My stomach flip-flopped. Last year I had opened my overlarge mouth, and that had caused a catastrophe. It seemed I might be on the verge of another.   
  
"Why're you asking me?" Lily managed not to sound accusing or angry, so it came out rather flatly.   
  
"Erm…" I told her the truth, same as I am you, "because you're a girl, and might be able to let me in on what you're thinking when you send notes like that." Seeing her face was tight as the caps on Arabella's jars, I added quickly (and it probably didn't sound genuine): "Oh, hell, Lily, I only realised now how bad that sounded - I'm sorry, forget it."  
  
Lily didn't react to this the way I had wanted her to. Now she lifted her head from her parchment. "No, Sirius." Her voice was hollow. I tried to place it. It sounded like Arabella, when she talked of Mairead McKinnon's death. It sounded like Peter, when he talked of his mother's manipulation of his life. It sounded like Remus, when he said he wasn't upset with me telling Snape about the knot of the Willow.   
  
In other words, it didn't reassure me.   
  
"No," she repeated, "I'm glad you told me, Sirius, I'm not angry… with you." She stood up and unnecessarily brushed something invisible from the lap of her robes and rolled up her writing or drawing or whatever it was. "Er, if you don't mind… I'd like to go and think a while, Sirius. I think I'll do to my dorm while it's empty."  
  
I stood up as well, quickly. I was about to spill out the truth of the matter, even show her Emily Kertcher's note if needed to convince her, but she held up a hand.   
  
"No, really, I'm not angry with you, Sirius. It must've been hard for you to find the courage to do that, and I'm very thankful… just - just surprised. I promise to keep your name out of this when I talk with James." She walked off before I could clear my throat to speak.   
  
I was left staring after where she had disappeared up the girls' staircase, filled with apprehension and dread.   
  
Then I suddenly realised that this was probably a "yes", if a girl sends a note to a boy, they probably had a crush on him. Emily Kertcher had a crush on me. I had a lot of girls around who did, I know, but somehow knowing it was Emily Kertcher made me blink and feel rather overwhelmed.   
  
But I was still worried about tomorrow, when a Lily, who'd had a whole night to stew on it, confronted James, who would be tired from our excursion, very bewildered and perhaps a little snappish from lack of sleep.  
  
This thought, as well as the sliver of moon at the window, reminded me of where I ought to get soon so I could help my friends. The run to the Shrieking Shack had never seemed so long.  
  
*  
  
I want to set the record straight right now on another score. Us Marauders, whether the whole of us as a group to just a specific one or two of us, have often been accused (oh, brilliance has its price; we had plenty of naysayers) of being cold-blooded heartbreakers to downright whores.   
  
We weren't really like that. Okay, so I had a reputation as "a little laddish" (that's Cockney-speak) that I probably earned. But I didn't start speaking to every girl I meant with the intention firmly fixed in mind of shagging her and breaking her heart, thanks. No, most of them, I just wanted to copy their homework…  
  
I don't think this is anyone's business, but as this is all getting out of hand, here is the facts: First off, yes, during the wartime, as us and our classmates got into our later years at Hogwarts and grew aware of things, some of us did go around saying: "You know, we might be dead in a few months. Might as well find out what it's like." However, there wasn't a lot of making out during Hogwarts. Curfew was pretty strictly imposed. (Some claim they were better troublemakers than we were. I notice most of them didn't have to sneak around after hours with as much patrol as we did…)   
  
But yes, I did so once, to a witch named Patty a year or so after Hogwarts. And then I never saw her again. It _was_ for the reason stated above: we figured we might die anyway. Why die a virgin? As it was first time for both of us, and we were making it up as we went along, trust me, I think it was pretty mild by most standards.   
  
James only did it with Lily. And that's a fact. Whether anything happened before marriage is no one's concern. Remus was so bloody reticent that his once-ever girlfriend (to date, that is, I haven't given up hope, but don't mention that to him) lived in Canada. Peter? Hell, obviously I don't know everything about him, but the Peter I once knew - no. After he became a different sort of Peter, I'd bet - never mind. Draw your own conclusions.  
  
I can't guarantee any critics will believe me, but I know I told the truth. So what a disappointment. We weren't out to make females miserable after all.   
  
*  
  
However, reputations have a large impact on people's beliefs, no escaping that. So I'm sure that Lily, however far gone she was, had the nagging doubts I placed in her watered and fed by the Potter-myths. (I notice that nowadays, James is the one least accused of anything wrong. He's attained immortal-like status. Not that he doesn't deserve it, but trust me, he had his faults. What where they? Good question, but then I'm biased.)  
  
But Lily got my hopes up. Weeks went by without a mention of what I'd said, and I was hopeful this would blow over, leaving me a little more cautious but no worse for wear.   
  
Meanwhile, Emily was doing little to persuade me that my conclusion on her hormones was incorrect. Although, it's funny, most people would think she was being far from love struck.  
  
We talked a few times. I initiated the conversation more often than not, testing her out, making perfectly reasonable excuses to comment on something. After that, Emily was more than able to continue the talk, and it didn't look as if I had wanted this to happen, to most people's eyes.  
  
But I sort of did want to talk. I never knew what she was going to say. Some days she would be friendly and nice to me; other days she would scold me, only half-teasing; other times she would be aloof and snappish. She couldn't outsnap me, though. I have a gift for arguing.   
  
I still got notes from her semi-occasionally. Most were not in her verse form. All forced me to read them several times before I understood it completely. We never spoke of them; I pretended to have never received them. But she knew I had read them, because I understood things she had revealed in them when it came up as we talked.  
  
Not that we talked too deeply, especially with everyone listening. Still, Emily liked to voice her opinions. She had a habit of beginning her conversations "Did you ever think…?" and I always knew that the answer was "no". Because Emily Kertcher thought of weird things.   
**  
**"Did you ever think…  
  
"… microphones were purely invented so people could make fools of themselves?"  
  
"… how someone went to a lot of trouble to foul up the testing system?"**  
  
**"... someone must have been incredibly bored to think up anything like explosive stuffed animals?"  
  
"... how nearly every time someone teases someone else, they're scared and trying to hide it?"  
  
"... humans must be really lazy to insist on waking during day instead of night?"  
  
"When d'you have time to _think_ of all this stuff?" I asked one day.  
  
She smiled, almost a smirk. "I don't waste all my time flirting with Katya Peterson."  
  
"Hell. I hope not."  
  
"Watch your language."  
  
"It's sort of hard when language doesn't have any mass…" Emily would scowl, having no reply to that. "Aw, did I outsmart our most intelligent little scholar?"  
  
"You wish, Black." Sometimes she still called me Black. But she had also begun calling me "Sirius" for the first time.   
  
"What an amazing comeback!"  
  
Emily buried her nose in her book, muttering something about how people never seemed to think she was anything other than a "scholar" since they were so bloody blind.  
  
*  
  
Yet despite all this, when I found her application as an AIT (Auror-In-Training) had been accepted, I congratulated her. Trying hard not to sound too enthusiastic, of course.  
  
"Good job, Emily."  
  
"Thanks, Sirius." She smiled, for once without any hint of a smirk.   
  
"Think you'd be accepted?" I pretended to search through my schoolbag for something. I wanted to hear her answer. She would have something sarcastic to say.  
  
"Why else d'you think I tried?" She was too pleased to sound truly annoyed. "Actually, no, I was really worried about that. It seemed so few made the cut, and…" She cut off and interrupted herself with a nervous laugh. She talked loudly and quickly when she was anxious to speak about anything she was earnest about. "…we had to send our mark records in, you know, of the past year? Last year was the one year I got less than ninety-five percent in Defence. I figured I blew it right there… and then I got the reply late… But then, guess what? I found out that they're so short on Aurors they're taking just about anyone, so I figure it's no credit to me."  
  
"They're taking you… yeah, they're desperate."  
  
She raised an eyebrow and turned to face me squarely. "Yes, they must be. They might _even_ be desperate enough to take you, Black."  
  
No, I wasn't in love with her or anything. But I felt a strange sort of something. As if she had come along with a simple purpose in life to simulate me. I grinned as she walked down the corridor.   
  
*  
  
I was still grinning that afternoon. That's when I remembered what Peter had said about Remus wanting to apply to become an AIT and immediately hunted him down.  
  
Figuring he was talking about whatever their reply was with either James or Peter, I waited outside our dormitory a bit. After hearing no voices, I opened the door. Remus was sitting against the stone backing of the fireplace, and, true to my guess, there were several pieces of brusque parchment next to him.  
  
"Moony? Can I come in?"  
  
He glanced up. "Can hardly stop you if you're a mind to."  
  
"It's not raining much anymore. Can I open a window?"  
  
Now Remus looked incredulous. "What is this, Mother May I? You're scaring me, Sirius."  
  
I took that as a "yes" and cracked it open before sitting cross-legged on James's bed. It was conveniently right near where Remus was. "Looks like some important post you're getting. What's the verdict with the Aurors? Emily Kertcher's got hers - and late, too. What'd they say?"  
  
"They - well…" Remus trailed off and found it easier to hand me the letter. It was short, simple, and none-too-sweet - in fact, just barely civil. And obviously they didn't realise that this werewolf had one hotheaded and overprotective friend, because they didn't even leave any doubt that, as Remus wanted to believe, he had simply failed the examination or regular requirements.   
  
I clenched my fists. "Damned bloody bigots…"  
  
"Well, we do have to remember that being an Auror _was_ aiming pretty high, Sirius," Remus said.   
  
I glared at him. " 'Thou, too, Brutus?'"  
  
"You're not the only one who had Muggle neighbours, Padfoot."  
  
"Good. You caught my meaning. Why is it aiming high? Emily says they're taking just about anyone. And what's this?" I indicated the other letters.   
  
I had my ways to shake off Remus (mostly consisting of lousy "serious/Sirius" puns); he had his ways to shake me off. Or to attempt to. "That?" Innocently and solemnly he looked down and studied the stack as if he had never seen it before. "Why, it looks like parchment to me… but that's just a wild guess - "  
  
"Shut up; I've put up with Emily Kertcher's type of remarks already today," I snapped, reaching to pick some up. Remus reached out to stop me and I knocked his hand out of the way. He made an indistinct noise of protest, and I grinned evilly at him. "Don't mess with a Beater, Rem. If Rudy Patil-Giles _mysteriously_ gets ill, I'll follow the first rule of the Beater's Bible without worrying about which team the particular Seeker is playing for."  
  
Remus sighed, but knew this battle was lost already and only attempted one last consolation word: "Unless the opponent's Slytherin."  
  
"Of course."   
  
They were all rejection letters. Remus had tried various places, including one (potion-brewer for Doobles') that I knew very well was only a try just to see what they'd say, all in varying degrees of thinly-veiled horror and disgust.  
  
I jumped from the bed, sending parchment flying all over the floor, and began pacing angrily, frequently going out of my way to violently kick something and curse. After a few minutes of this, I turned sharply to face Remus, who was watching my exasperation very calmly and quietly, even faintly amused.   
  
"Doesn't it _bother_ you?" I demanded furiously.   
  
Remus lowered his eyes a moment, thinking. "Yeah," he admitted at last.  
  
"How can you be so bloody _calm_?" I kicked my four-poster for emphasis. "I'm sodding _furious_. Aren't you ever _angry_? Why don't you ever _show_ it?"  
  
He smiled. "Why bother? You throw the fit for me, and it sure saves a lot of time and energy on my part."   
  
I stopped dead a moment, and finally had to chuckle. My rage was broken, but I was still upset. "You're a good person, Remus. You don't deserve that," I said empathetically.   
  
"Does anyone deserve what life gives them?" Remus asked after another moment.  
  
I glared. "D'you carry around a book of profound saying to refer to at moments like these?"  
  
Naturally, Remus had to give some smart-alec act of asking me to wait a minute, he had to look on chapter six, page seventy-eight, for "Rhetorical Questions - How To Reply?" He used to have an annoying habit of getting incredibly punchy in uncomfortable situations. After flipping through his imaginary guide and giving an answer, he shrugged.   
  
"What'll you do?" I asked finally.   
  
"Not stay with Athena anymore. That's all that's needed."  
  
"That and a little thing that's necessary for life, a little something known as food. Shelter and clothing don't hurt, either." Okay, so I guess I had the same reflex in tense conversations.  
  
He shrugged again. "I'll manage. There's still work to be found where they don't instantly go and check your records."  
  
I scowled. "Not anymore. Not anywhere you'd _want_ to be, anyway." Most positions did require a background check then. War, remember?  
  
"Then I'll have to prove myself somewhere I'd rather not be before I can get somewhere I would want to be," Remus said, quietly resolute. "Now, really, can you stop trying to destroy my optimism? Because I'm a cranky person when my optimism is snatched away. I'm very possessive of it. It's like a security blanket."  
  
Under normal circumstances, I'd have laughed. Instead, it was my turn to stare at him for a moment. He finally caught my eye and shifted, obviously uncomfortable with apprehension at whatever I was about to say.   
  
"Mind if I close that window?"   
  
Another annoying rumour to smash into smithereens. Remus and I are not a couple or anything like that. What prompted my next move was a sudden rush of admiration and friendship (what, it was ever doubted I was an old softie?) I got up at the same time he did, and spontaneously gave him a fierce hug.   
  
"You're a good person, Moony," I repeated, "and I - we're always going to be there for you, no matter what a bunch of prejudicial dunderheads say."  
  
Realising that my action might fall under stupid, I released him, with slight trepidation at his reaction.  
  
Remus looked a little nonplussed, but I didn't get a swing of a fist at my head, which I took as a good sign. There was a pause.  
  
"Thanks, Padfoot… I'm lucky to know you."  
  
That exchange was pretty deep, especially for two people seventeen and male (emotions? - us? - _never_), so that was all. But I felt then that a good deal of the tension that had mounted up since the year before, when Remus had forgiven-but-not-really-forgiven me, had been erased. So those damn letters were still lousy, but I considered it an okay day.  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	3. I'm Sorry

**I'm so sorry this took so long; might've been a teeny bit faster if ff.n hadn't been having problems… for their encouragement and help in their reviews, this chapter is definitely owed**** to Ayla Pascal, enoimreH, Ginny Potter, Iniga, Lavander Ice, Moonie, and Vying Quill.**

**Disclaimer: The following is not purely original fiction, but rather characters, settings, and situations as created by J.K. Rowling. No money is being made of this piece of fanfiction and can not be reproduced for any purposes but strictly private entertainment.******

            "Man" – Darry grinned and put his arm around Soda's shoulders – "this is one kid brother I don't have to worry about."

            Soda punched him in the ribs affectionately.

            "This kiddo can use his head."

            Sodapop looked down at me with mock superiority, but Darry went on: "You can see he uses it for one thing – to grow hair on." 

            -- "The Outsiders", S.E. Hinton

**Chapter Three – I'm Sorry**

There was a neighbour near our farm. I can't quite remember her name – a Mrs Johanna Martin, I believe, but don't hold me to my word there. In any case, this woman was… oh, how to put it mildly… religious. Only that's understating it. She was zealously religious, the sort of woman who lectures you for doing anything on the Sabbath and whom you are desperate to get rid of the moment she arrives. The kind who might actually care about people, but only shows it by reminding them of their sins.

            Anyway, at the time of this, I had been past the age when she thought of me as a little boy who needed to be shown the path to heaven, but I still remembered her warnings about Judgment Day nice and clearly. 

            "You're going to stand before that chair on Judgment Day, Sirry," she would say in warning tones of doom (yes, "Sirry", you heard that correctly), "right before the Good Lord himself, so high up you can barely see him, and then all your sins are going to be laid out in front of you and your guilt exposed raw for all to see…"

            Somehow, as cheerful speculations of this sort tend to do, this stuck in the very back of my mind all these years, even though by the time I was in my seventh year she had given me up for lost to the Fiery Below, and her images of Judgment Day came to me quite sharply now. 

            Things were a little reversed – I was the one sitting in a chair, awaiting judgment with my knees bent and head hanging because I couldn't bear to met either of them in the eye. And you can bet I felt my guilt was nice and rawly exposed.

            James and Lily were the ones standing, a bit too close to each other for my comfort, staring down at me unnervingly. I wished they would just hit me really hard and have it over with. 

            "I, erm," I stammered uncertainly, "I'm, uh, really, really sorry…?"

            "Are you really?" 

            That was Lily, voice conveying no emotion except light sarcasm. 

            Well, here's news for you, Evans, I thought irritably, I _am _sorry. I've _been _sorry. So please don't blame me for having made the English language so inefficient that the best you can come up with during an apology is "sorry".

            *

            Gossip is a funny, funny thing. Particularly when you try to _dissect _it, like Lily Evans was trying to do. 

            I'm sure she was. During her latter Hogwarts years, she started to become either too mature or too distanced (because of James) to be very interested in the gossip of her friends. I can remember watching her out of the corner of my eye, face far-off while she put on a show of being involved in the girls' conversation, thinking of goodness-knows-what. She also perfected the art of acceptable, polite non-answers. When questioned, she would grin and say something like: "It's possible" or "Honestly!" or (my personal favourite) "Right". 

            But when I mentioned Nancy Turpin to her – a whole transformation came over her when she listened to gossip. I saw her trying to appear nonchalant, as usual, but this time trying not to show that she was like a hawk on every word that was said: watch – pounce – examine thoroughly – eat or discard. She discarded a lot of prey for a while, leaving me to get complacent and in hopes everything would be fine, despite my Big Mouth. 

            However, at one point, she must have gotten some talk that seemed to confirm what I had said about Nancy. I never asked her about it, even long after this fiasco had blown over, even after we had become on friendly terms, if not friends. But quite abruptly, James's Lily turned into Lily the Sharply Vengeful. 

            Most unfortunately for James, he overslept (how he ever managed to sleep late through the racket I generally made in the mornings is beyond my comprehension) and was late for breakfast on the morning of Lily's conclusion. 

By the time he reached our table, Lily had finished a very small amount of breakfast and was apparently deep into a book. As I recall, Remus, Peter, and I were having a heavy debate about Quidditch – it was a few days after another devastating attack by the Death Eaters, and we were trying to pretend that the fact that we all cheered for different teams (I cheered the Wasps, Remus was for the Arrows, and Peter wondered why we all just couldn't get along) was our worst problem. I also seem to remember that we were succeeding. 

            "'Morning," James said, looking grateful that Lily had sat a seat or two away from us, because then he could sit next to both Lily and me without incurring anyone's wrath. 

            Hi, James, we all said, or something similar, except Lily, who refused to speak from behind her book. Why girls are so fond of the silent treatment, I'll never know. 

            James didn't seem to notice, which wasn't unusual. James was, unless faced with a very serious problem, blind to the little things of the world that were slightly askew and had an untroubled nature. His mind was too busy with bigger, better, and happier plans all around. 

            "What're you reading, Lil?" he asked. 

            "The title is on the cover," Lily replied neutrally. For the life of me, I cannot remember what that bloody book was called. It was some Muggle title I haven't heard of before or since. Lily, true Gryffindor her, was always remarkably indifferent to the dangers of displaying Muggle upbringing in public, figuring that all the Death Eaters who were also classmates already knew her background anyway. I doubt she wasn't _ever_ apprehensive, but damned if she was going to show it in Hogwarts. 

            "Oh." James began eating. "Whafit aboutf?" he asked through a mouthful of food. 

            I think he did it purposefully, because when Lily gave him a short answer ("a girl in a house") without telling him off for talking with his mouth full, he began to look concerned. 

            "Feeling all right, Lil?" James glanced at her, and then looked at all of us in turn, questioning. I pretended to be deeply engrossed in my empty plate. No point in filling it up. My appetite had suddenly vanished. 

            "Fine."

            James had the intelligence to wait a few minutes before posing his next question. "Anything wrong?" 

            Lily snapped the book shut, having long since lost interest in the girl in a house. "James, are you feeling all right?"

            "Erm… yes." James was totally taken aback. 

            "Anything _wrong_, James?" 

            Blink. Blink. Blink. "Except that I'm worried sick about you, lily-bud?" he replied, as if this was a trick question on an exam, voice raising an octave every few words. 

            Lily glared and abruptly stood. "Well, then," she said sweetly, "I'll turn my head and be very blind while you do whatever you must to feel better. In fact, I'll ignore you, so much the better, right?" She snatched her book and tossed her bag over one shoulder. "I'm getting off to Transfiguration before I'm late." Off she swept, leaving a very bewildered James. 

            "What's going on?" he asked to no one in particular except the empty seat beside him. 

            "Dunno," Peter said, looking just as bemused. "She seemed fine yesterday afternoon. Did you do anything that might have made her angry?"

            "No!" James replied instantly, standard reply for any boy who is asked that. 

            Rather caustically, Remus raised an eyebrow. "Positive about that?" 

            "Of course," James said, giving him a small glare.

            "Just checking." Remus shrugged. "Give her a day chock-full of N.E.W.T. preparation to focus energy somewhere else and see how she feels then. Might've just been a bad morning, you know." 

            I brightened for a moment before crashing back to reality. Somehow, I suspected it was more than a "bad morning". After all, I had caused it, remember? "Grand," I muttered. "Now Moony is an expert on reading girl signals. We all know how much experience he has on that."

            "No. I've just been watching you three the past couple of years and noticed patterns."

            "What sort of patterns did you notice on me?" I demanded. 

            "The one where you date a dozen girls each year?" Peter suggested. 

            "Little stuff. Like how you _always _have a breakup right before Christmas because you don't know what to buy her." 

            "And I suppose you know." I was feeling rather bad-tempered. 

            Remus grinned wickedly. "Of course I do, Padfoot. But I never give answers. I just state the obvious." 

            If you would ever wonder why I think James is the absolute best friend you could ever have, here's why: he instantly chucked a handful of eggs at Remus… who didn't duck quickly enough.

            I smiled angelically as he tried to brush it off with his hands. "Didn't the security blanket of optimism shield you from that?" 

            Remus tried to look threatening and failed. "Yes, it did. It already has me thinking of payback." I almost retorted that the blanket must be _extremely_ optimistic if he thought he could pull it off against us before remembering what had happened the last time Remus had thought of payback. Let's just say this is one time I didn't have to break up with the girl. 

            Peter tried not to look nervous and failed. "I wasn't involved, Rem," he reminded quickly.

            "I'll remember that, Wormtail." 

            *

            Remus put off his vengeance for a long while, because nothing he could have done would have matched the punishment Lily delivered. James was miserable, for reasons we all understood. (And luckily Remus, along with just about everyone, thought my own misery was just a sharing of James's.) 

            Actually, James was in _shock_ before he was miserable. He rarely looked so helpless. Sometimes I hated Lily when he thought it over, with eyes wide, troubled, and blank (then I cheerfully remembered that I ought to be hating _myself_). He simply had no clue or inkling as to how things between him and his girlfriend could be pitch-perfect one day and deteriorated the next. 

            If you'll remember what I said earlier, James always had a secret sort of fear of girls. Maybe not fear, but wariness. Starting around his fourth year, his Quidditch prowess and wit and charm (and whatever else they saw) had attracted a large following of lovestruck girls. James accepted this turn of events with a dashing, carefree smile and his store of friendly jokes, but I knew him well enough to see that he always wondered. Why him? Would they care about him if he couldn't shoot goals well? Why the hell did they treat him like a king?

            Don't get me wrong. James enjoyed it. Some accused he did so just a little too much. But he never seemed to think he could be serious about any of his adorers. 

            Lily, obviously, was a wee bit different, possibly because for a solid five and a half years she never showed anything more than platonic interest in him. Before that, well, I dunno. We didn't know any of the girls well for our first few years, even our Gryffindor yearmates. Occasionally we fought, occasionally we formed casual friendships, later some dating. I didn't know them well enough before then to say "friend" or "enemy"… at least not for very long spurts, that is. (I just remembered that Miranda Stacey and I spent the first half of our second year squabbling; by the end of school, she was my current date. Forgive, forget, move on.) 

            So there was no way that James was going to ask any _other_ girl for advice, and he regarded Lily as some very complicated and delicate potion that always hissed at him. I would have done anything for James, but we both knew my advice would help little, and Remus and Peter weren't much more informed. 

            Most frustrating to him was Lily. After her Grand Announcement of Antagonism that particular morning, she appeared, outwardly, to be normal as ever. She laughed, studied, chatted, and all the other normal functions (although I observed that she lost noticeable weight). If James approached her, she would reply calmly and politely, although still with that little chill that women seem to be born with. Their birthright: Frostiness of the Voice to be Used for Special Occasions.  When he tried to ask her what she was upset about, she would light lightly and dismissively.

            "Oh, come on, James, we're over that now, aren't we? If you wanted to break up, we can do this maturely. I won't be angry with you or you with me and we'll move on."

            "Move on from _what_?" James would burst out five minutes later, after Lily had left the room. 

            *

            A few weeks after this dreadfully depressing state of affairs, one of Lily's friends (I think we'll call her Shannon because I forget what it was and it began with an "S" sound) came up to Remus while he was studying with a righteous, disdainful huff. 

            "What did Potter do to Lily?" 

            Remus, just after finishing a talk with James in which he had discreetly voiced the opinion that James ought to stop moping, looked up at her, eyes flashing. "Excuse me?" _What did _Potter _do to _Lily_? _I heard him add tacitly. 

            "You heard me. What did James Potter do to upset Lily Evans? I would ask Black, he knows him best, but I've always thought of him as too much of a git."

            Note: I was sitting across the library table from Remus and Shannon.

           (Yes, studying, that event became less rare in the seventh year, which definitely separates the dedicated and talented from those who can follow instructions and memorise bits of Latin.)

            "James did not intentionally do a thing to upset Lily," Remus said quietly, a sharp edge to it. "It's not anybody's fault. There's just a lack of communication."

            To both Remus and Shannon's great surprise, I stood up, slammed my chair in, and slapped Remus across the face before storming off. 

            Yes, I was feeling very high-strung, and that's because I felt guilty as sin. I knew it was, in fact, someone's fault – my own. I hated knowing that I was making James – even Lily, those lost kilos showed this all had _some_ effect on her – unhappy. 

            But also, the thought of confessing to James what I had done was terrible. Announcing to the whole school that Emily Kertcher had written me very short of a love letter (am I exaggerating? Yes, it's one of my talents) was a grand prospect compared to telling James that I had sabotaged his relationship with his girlfriend. 

            The year before this, I had done something else stupid that had caused a huge riff in our friendships, the same breech of self-control that had caused the uncertainly between Remus and myself. 

            Remus, as you've probablyfigured out if you've read this far, was bitten when he was seven and now a werewolf. With years of suspicion and hatred, Remus never really allowed himself to trust too many people. His coming to Hogwarts, especially back then, was nothing short of a modern-day political miracle (miracles tend to follow Albus Dumbledore around, of course). 

            Severus Snape, as you've also probably guessed, was not my favourite person in the world. From the first moment I had met him, he reeked of hostility, meanness, and rudeness. The school's resident oddity, the standoffish bookworm, Snape and I hadn't a good relationship. It only magnified when James pushed him, in our early school years, to be more social and Snape lashed back at him, picking on every little thing James ever did, and when I suspected him of Dark involvement. 

            Further complicating the picture was a… well, if it wasn't a friendship, it was a mutual respect formed between Remus and Snape in our fifth year (due to stupid, stupid extra curricular activities the world's Ministries of Magic instituted – it wasn't really stupid, but I was so disgusted with the outcome that I still think of it that way). 

            Was I jealous? Well… yes. That only explains my actions that night in my sixth year. There was – is – a passage on the grounds of Hogwarts that leads to the infamous Shrieking Shack, where Remus was locked for his transformations. Snape had spotted him leaving and was musing, by that time probably wondering where his partner disappeared to. 

            Just because we both liked Remus hadn't done a thing to improve our own relationship, and as I caught him spying, Snape and I had gotten into an argument. Losing my temper, I told him how to open the passageway. It was stupid, I know, and I hadn't meant to, but I stomped away before I thought straight. 

            Snape, being the world's _nosiest_ standoffish bookworm (and he does have a rather large nose, if it comes to that), went into that tunnel. (Eejit. Eejit. Eejit. Who the hell listens to _me _when I'm angry at them unless they're suicidal?) I let it slip to James, and he rushed outside and coaxed Snape back (that must have been an interesting conversation). They barely escaped that tunnel with their lives.  

            Remus was furious with me; James was furious with me; Peter was furious with me. (Snape was furious with me, too, if it comes to that, but that didn't bother me much.) Snape now knew about Remus's lycanthropy (which, by the way, seems to have ended their friendship), and I had almost allowed Remus to kill both James and Snape. 

            It's a low, low feeling when your closest friends are that livid with you. James had been irate with me for about three days before suddenly moving on to the next part of his life and forgiving me wholeheartedly. Didn't take much longer for him to act as though it hadn't happened. Peter started speaking to me shortly after James did… he didn't like strife. There was too much of it for him at home; for him, it was far easier to swallow his anger than it was to fight. 

            Remus couldn't seem to so much as look at me for days. At my pleading for forgiveness and promises of penance, he forgave me within a week. But, as I've illustrated before, he never trusted me as much afterwards. 

            He was used to physical pain, but emotional hurt was his terror. He'd lived with too much of it and it never dulled. From the very day he first spoke to anyone when he first came to school, he was placing some bit of trust in them. Looking back, the day he accepted our friendship was a leap in the dark for him and an important one for me. Sure, I had people trust me before, but not with such an important faith as Remus's. What he trusted me with was… delicate. Funny word in connection with werewolves, I know some'll think. 

            I had never regretted that; Remus sometimes protested that, for heavens' sakes, he _could _take care of himself, but I think we've already established that I love caring for people (see part I). The ones I think are worthy, anyway. After the incident I just described, Remus was reluctant to allow me to care for him. That was a complete slap in the face to me. 

            But while Remus was an absolute grand friend, and I would have done anything for him, my friendship with James was even deeper. I don't know how to describe it. I think you probably would have to known someone like James to understand. "Blotter", remember? – if for some reason I wasn't Sirius Black, then I might as well be James Potter, and vice versa. We were that close. Dunno why; others have known their friends longer but never had a friendship of our magnitude, but that's the way it was. 

            (Side note: "was" is such an awful word. I prefer "is", come to think of it.)

            So therefore, the thought of having the same separation and hesitant friendship with James was a thought I could barely face. How could I even live without being so closely connected with James? I had long since forgotten how to by the age of eighteen. Just the three days in my sixth year in which he either ignored me or chewed me out were probably the three worst days of my life up to that point. Going through it again, only worse – after all, this time, the one I had hurt was James himself, and the whole mess had gotten plenty of time to brew. There was a good chance he'd be angry a lot longer than seventy-two hours. 

            *

            But after the way Remus had worded things to Miss Shannon the Priss ("lack of communication"), I realised that I couldn't put it off any longer. James was miserable, Lily was obviously upset enough to have her friends putting a price on James's head; something needed to be done. I could confess, and even if James hated me forever, at least he'd be happy again. And James's happiness was crucial to my very existence; I had been losing weight as rapidly as Lily (not too grand considering I had _finally _gotten the Beater spot on the Quidditch team). 

            That's why I hunted down Peter frantically that evening; I could not stand telling James this face-to-face. Peter could relay the message. And he'd probably be the one to forgive me most quickly, even though he can hold a grudge as well. 

            "You did _what_?!" was his general response. I guess you can't blame him for being taken a wee bit off guard. I approached him with this articulate confession: 

            "Wormtail you got to hear me out on this and don't interrupt, it'll make it harder all right?" I didn't wait for his reply. "Peter I – I did a – a stupid thing, it's my fault Lily's angry with James but I did not and I mean I did _not _mean to do it. All that happened was that I got a note from – someone and I wanted to ask someone with a girl's point of view what it meant so I asked Lily but I accidentally substituted – not accidentally but without _thinking_ come on Wormtail you know me – James in my place when I explained it to her and she took it to mean that James was interested in someone else and I was too embarrassed to correct her, and soon she was giving him the shoulder and I haven't figured out how to tell him about it – you've got to help me tell him!" 

            Peter stared at me. "Sirius. Very slowly. In English." Although he was making a joke about it, his voice was very, very stern. 

            Finally, I made him understand all the details, although it took about a half an hour and I started crying. How I hated myself for that. I could never understand why I cried so easily, and it was no small matter to me. 

            "Sirius," he said at long last, giving a good stare to my tearstreaked face and the hair I had been practically trying to pull out of my head, "I think you're making a big deal out of very little."

            I let go of the strands of hair I had been yanking at in frustration and helplessness. "You – you what? You do? How so?" That had been the _last_ thing I had expected to hear.

            "The only reason it's a problem is because you didn't tell James and Lily right off. You should've; now they've been fighting a month. Otherwise – what was the big deal? You and Lily didn't understand each other right; just tell her what you meant for real…"

            "You don't understand!" I cried frantically. (Ah, the first thing that leaves the lips of someone who is out of perspective.) "First off, Lily Evans drew up that conclusion about James's other girl and thought that's what I was telling her; she'd _kill_ me if she thought I had joked with her, and then the note that _I _got was from… was from…" I trailed off.

            "Someone special?" Peter said, with a wise, conspiratorial air. 

            I scowled. "No." I'd die before I admitted Emily's crush.

            "Right."

            "Sod off and tell James for me!"

            Peter visibly paled and backed off, holding hands in front of him. "Uh-huh. That's _your_ job, Padfoot, you got into the mess, you get out of it." I must have looked distraught, because he relented to some degree. "Okay, okay – I'll tell James you have something to tell him… and Lily."

            "Maybe even hint at it a little?" I begged shamelessly. 

            He sighed. "I'll warm them up to the idea." 

            *

            Peter did so. How he managed to get Lily to sit in the same room with James alone for a few minutes was another miracle of modern nature. How he managed to drag me into that room was another.

            It was actually a bit of a corridor; the pathway to Gryffindor Tower has a wealth of paths that lead nowhere in particular but are very useful when you need a private place to talk. 

            "Ahem," he said, rather importantly, although he looked a little nervous. "Miss Evans, Mr Potter, Sirius here has something to tell you." 

            I glared at the way he had opened this up, placing all that pressure on me, and Peter smiled, half apologetically and half bracingly. He had murmured to me all the way as he dragged me to our meeting place cheerful encouragement such as "it'll all be over in a few minutes", which, in my ears, was pretty much equivalent to "they can only kill you _once_…" 

            *

            I've been debating for a few moments whether to re-enact that conversation, and decided not to. Partly because Lily and James's child will be reading this and I'm afraid I'll give him an inaccurate account. 

            There's a future part to this little story that I don't want to get into writing now, it'll come along too soon as it is, but I've spent a lot of years in a place that played bad memories in my head over and over and over again. Needless to say, most of them got very distorted. If I think anything will be too unclear in my memory, then I'm not going into it in great detail. Unfortunately, some of those events are the reasons I'm writing in the first place (well, the first reason I wrote this was to keep from driving Remus insane as I went stir-crazy as I had to hide inside for so long), but I'll worry about that when I get to it. The writing I've done so far has helped to make things clearer. Hopefully the more I get along, the more my memories will unlock. 

            Thy quill is as thy skeleton key, Black. Or perhaps your passport back to full sanity and recollection.

            *

            After our little "chat", James and Lily spent a long night disappearing for a talk of their own in low voices. Hogwarts understood by next morning that their row had ended. By slow degrees, their relationship deepened and (oh-so poetical) warmed little by little like a sunrise. 

            James (along with Lily) had been livid with me while I sat before them in that room, but after he and Lily made up that night, he practically kissed everyone in the common room, including me. He was at peace with the world again. But somewhere during this whole fiasco he seemed to have lost his childlike, wide-eyed, new-day-thou-shalt-findeth-tomorrow innocence, and it wasn't an unconditional reconciliation. 

            "I know you had gotten in over your head and were scared, Sirius," he said abruptly one day – completely out of the blue. My mind was very much elsewhere. (In truth, mentally re-reading one of Emily's latest notes; they had become rare.) "And I understand that. But I'm still angry that you would let it go on that long."

            I reddened. "James, I – I was just afraid you'd never forgive me for it. I don't think I'd ever know how to function without you."

            This sort of statement could have immediately brought things to rights, and I was entirely sincere in it, but James frowned slightly. "It's funny," he said, almost to himself. "Lily jumped so quickly to the conclusion I was seeing someone else, with flimsy evidence, mind you, and you didn't think I could understand you." He looked at me steadily. "Don't you think I'd trust and know you well enough by now, Sirius? How long have we known each other – ten years?" 

            I couldn't even reply to that, and soon someone interrupted us, and James never brought this up again. In fact, that was about the second most serious conversation he ever had with me. As I said, James was pretty happy-go-lucky (which, as a side note, is a rather stupid phrase, but it's there, convenient, and everyone understands it, so I use it).

            Peter couldn't be angry at me, not after I had went to him for help, and Remus certainly wasn't happy but couldn't keep a grudge if James wasn't. If Lily had continued to detest the sight of me, then he might have showed his disgust a tad more openly, but Lily had already screamed that she had forgiven me. Under special circumstances, I might add. 

            Lily was literally ready to take my wand and toss me into the lake (I heard Shannon talk of it), but she accepted my apology – for much the same reason Remus had the year before. Trust me, if you go around saying humbly but repeatedly: "Lily, I'm sorry", "Lily, I'm awfully sorry", "Lily, I'm sorry", and "Lily, I'm sorry", eventually Lily, no matter how upset she is, will turn around and snap: "It's o_kay_, I forgive you, Sirius!" 

            *

            But in a way, it was actually quite a good event for us. I gained respect for Lily. I appreciated that she hadn't given James one of those "choose them or me!" ultimatums (I had gotten one from Dina Fawcett the year before; she wasn't fond of the whole "Marauder" thing). She also had tolerated me and hadn't cast the fiasco up to James constantly (another common girl trait). And just seeing just how much happy James was enough for me to start accepting her, not just outwardly, but a bit more wholeheartedly.    

            And good thing. James's taste was not exactly to be doubted; Lily turned out to be the sort of person you would want to know (especially after you stop thinking of them as the one taking away your best friend). She was… Lily. And, as you probably saw, very strong-minded. Yet funny and caring. 

            We managed to get along pretty well, as I was still trying as hard as possible to win her favour. But things were still strained and awkward, so I decided to invite her to our end-of-school party that summer. 

            It was a nice event. I feel like writing about it.

            *

            After finding that, despite the fact that many might have had more family money and more family power, I definitely had as much useable and fun space as any of my classmates at Hogwarts, in my sixth year, I slowly got the idea to have a get-together for all of us after the end of seventh year. I was closest to the Marauders, but I had gotten attached to just about everyone, and the thought of us leaving forever – well, you know me by now. Despite the fact that we would probably all meet again, and if not, it was war-related, I probably acted as if we were all moving to foreign countries and never to return again. 

            I liked the idea at first of inviting everyone in seventh year (even Slytherins, who else would be play pranks on?). Arabella put her foot down. Just having me had been a crash course in learning about children for her. She wasn't used to them, although she liked James, Remus, and Peter, in that order, because that's the order of how much time each spent over at my house. Having _forty_ kids? No, no, and no. She also foresaw that some of them would be Death Eaters, even at a time that many refused to believe "young and innocent schoolchildren" could be in the Dark Order. 

            "Why not just invite James and Remus and Peter?" she asked over Easter holiday. 

            "I want to invite Lily. I have to make peace with her; she and James are getting serious." I hadn't given her the details, but she knew I didn't much like Lily as of then. 

            "Then invite her too."

            "'Bella! How's Lily going to feel with three boys? She's going to need friends over too. And I don't want it to be exclusive and snobby. I can have these three over anytime. I'm talking everyone, including the ones I don't know well."

            We spent two evenings drawing up a guest list of anyone I was friendly with. Arabella kept it smaller by keeping out anyone under seventh year, including Peter's on-and-off girlfriend and Miranda Stacey's brother, and any Slytherins whatsoever. This was still about twenty, and Arabella looked as though a migraine was coming on. 

            "Can't some other parents volunteer to help?" 

            Yes, I found soon, after an owl or two, they could. 

            "Listen, I'm just going to embarrass you, Sirius…"

            "Don't you _dare_ back out of this, 'Bella!" 

            "Honestly, you're as terrible as a girl with all these plans," she moaned, rubbing her temples. 

            I knew by the time she had descended to insulting me that I had won nearly every battle to come until the party had ended. 

            *

            "Sirius Black's party" was circled through the talk at school quickly, and soon considered something very big to attend. Like it? I confess, I adored it. In the midst of the war and suspicion, everyone tended to get a bit closed in, and I'm a social animal. I was thrilled with the prospect of having everyone together outside of school, with no teachers or homework or Filch to consider, and I loved the attention. 

            Peter was feeling smug, because I had invited Emily Kertcher to it, despite the fact she wasn't in the popular crowd I had amassed. He had figured out that something was going on between us, and since I confirmed nothing, his imagination had free reign. So it didn't take very long for him to tell James and Remus, although I trusted them not to say anything, although I was rather put out by the knowledge that James had probably told Lily. I had no proof James discussed everything with her, but my melodramatic mind said so. 

            So Lily, Emily, and Miranda Stacey would be there, and Peter's girlfriend, a sixth year, would not be. He wasn't passing up the chance to needle us, and it was icing on his cake when his Ministry mentor told him that he would be escorting a Miss Anna Holtry from Canada that June, to travel Europe for a year. 

            During the worldwide gathering Remus and Snape had been partnered for, Remus had returned with a penfriend from Canada, a witch in our year named Anna Holtry. We had teased him, of course, aw, look, our little Moony's growing up, isn't it sweet how he blushes? We still occasionally did so, because the two hadn't quit writing to each other by this time, even though they hadn't seen each other since. 

            A good thing that I was going to win every battle with Arabella, because I picked fierce ones and soon decided, without a doubt, my bonanza would not be complete if we didn't meet Remus's friend. I wrote her before the end of term, and her schedule while in England, with a few minor adjustments, would be perfect for her to come. She seemed nice, very excited to be writing to one of Remus's infamous friends and thrilled at the chance to see him, and promised to be mum about the whole thing to him, but then, I expected her to be. I couldn't imagine Remus not having a nice girlfriend. Er, friend. 

            Anna was staying at Mr Chresham's house, and therefore had access to the Floo system. I asked her to come over early. It didn't occur to me in the least that it would be bad manners to have her over while Arabella and I were still setting up – why would it be? 'Bella only pointed that out ten minutes before she arrived. 

            I shrugged. "Oh well. I'll remember next time."

            Arabella looked haggard. She placed a hand on her hip; the other, holding a dishtowel, waved in the air with exasperation. "_Next_ time?" 

            "Don't worry, it'll be in a London flat by then," I grinned at her, ignoring the question that read perfectly on her face: "That must be some flat, Sirius Fidel Black." I added one more magical decorative spell, still reveling in the power to do magic anytime, with no fear of trouble. Not that it ever stopped me much. "Is she late yet?" 

            "Calm down; you told her two forty-five and it's barely twenty to." 

            "I've just been thinking that I really have no clue what she's like. The extent of Remus's remarkable powers of description was 'very nice' and 'intelligent'. Merlin, I hope she isn't some scholarly type who never sees the light of day for her books. I'd suspect it of him." 

            "What's wrong with that?" Arabella asked stoutly. "A good clever girl would be a good influence on you four." I reflected that Lily was a "good clever girl" who had, thus far, only divided us. Or at least James and me. Arabella went on working on her pasta for a little longer before asking: "Does she know about Remus's condition?" 

            That was Arabella's way of phrasing it: Remus's "condition". I shrugged again. "I haven't the faintest clue. I told you, Remus didn't tell us a lot about her, and I couldn't very well ask lately without getting him suspicious of what we were doing." 

            "Of course he doesn't talk about her; you'd take it as an invitation to tease him mercilessly." Arabella never seemed to understand that "teasing" was just our way of expressing friendship, really. As I said, she tried and she was wonderful, but she never really got kids. "I hope she knows."

            "Why?" I asked, a little dangerously. 

            "Sirius. You know Remus can't get into a serious relationship."

            "Why not?" I demanded, taking a bowl and beating the egg-mush inside.

            Arabella smiled tolerantly as I sent the egg-mush all over her and the kitchen, nodding at my wand. I reddened and used a charm instead. I still wasn't used to being able to use magic for any task that I couldn't quite understand, although Arabella was adamant about not letting me get dependant on magic. It was her way of life, and, she reasoned, mine by default. I reckon she was right.

            But then she looked sterner after I had finished. "If there's only one bad trait James passed along to you, it's a tendency to refuse to see anything you don't like. I like Remus very much, but I've always worried about things like this ever since I found out. I hope he's mature about it and keeps his head." 

            "You won't let him do anything else," I grinned. Arabella, despite her cluelessness about children and teenagers, did her hardest to play mother to all of us. My mother died when I was less than a year older, Remus's when he was thirteen, James's at sixteen, and Peter's mum was also too ill or distracted to remember she had a son. In my humble and biased opinion.  

            She shook your head. "I'll care about you always, but you're adults now. I cannot control your lives, no matter how hard the temptations, and I'll always be here to talk, but you four must make the decisions. It won't be easy, but that's life. Even now, you're under my roof another year at least, and you always have a home here, but you're your own man now. C'est la vie and my blessing."

            This might have been a grand and expected time for me to get clingy, emotional mess I've always been, but luckily the fireplace chose that moment to burn green. 

            The first thing Anna Holtry did was to straighten from where she had fallen to her knees, glance around, and grin as she saw me. "I sure hope you're Sirius, because I've only noticed now that I haven't any other Floo powder if you're not."  I laughed, pleased with my first impression. 

            Remus had always been maddeningly vague when pressed for details about Anna's appearance, so I suspected she was either an overweight hag or really, really fit, and either way he was slightly embarrassed about it. 

            But in fact, you couldn't call Anna "pretty" but nor could you say a hag. She had a very decent figure, slightly tomboyish, black hair that was dark brown in sun, and pale brown-green eyes that didn't match her hair, and rather browned skin. But while she wasn't gorgeous, her face was chock-full of character. Her haphazard side part, the wide nose, the freckles, the bangs with minds of their own, the one ear that wanted to stick out, and a mouth that looked funny when it smiled or pouted – all of it gave her face a very strong, sensible, and quirky personality. 

            She passed my test. Anna was a little shy and hesitant at first, but warmed up and did prove to be "intelligent" and "very nice" and quite witty. Arabella nodded approvingly at her, and I had quite a time chasing her around during the conversation. She had an Emily-like quality of talking, and didn't spend too long discussing the price of eggs. 

            "What's this thing with Europe?" I asked her. "Traveling all abroad, are we?" 

            Anna smiled. Her lips struck me as a little chapped but too full, so when she smiled, her mouth expanded but couldn't seem to push up. It wasn't what you would call cute but appealing in an odd way. "Dead luck," she said, speaking in a rather nasally way, Canada's way, I supposed, that also captured my attention. I could see why Remus had been interested in talking with her; Anna's oddities were fascinating. "My family has been watching my aunt Stephanie's children for years – she's a bit of a free spirit and she and my uncle had a divorce years ago. Well, she was starting another of her globe-trots and, you know" – she exaggerated a high-pitched yet posh voice – "Anna's getting to be such a young lady now, out of school and everything, _just to show you my appreciation_ – and wink, wink, wink, so you'll watch my next baby when I marry again – how about I take her on my next trip?" 

            "But you're with Tanner Cresham," I said. 

            She grinned wryly. "What, you expect her to put up with me? I've always been too anti-social for her, she loved taking my older sister, but I'm just a burden on her, so she arranged for me to stay with friends around the world. Everyone's been very nice, and I'm loving it all so far. Mrs. Figg, whatever you're making, it smells awesome. What exactly is it?" 

            Certainly she didn't seem "anti-social" when she was talking with me, but as everyone else started pouring in, she got a little reserved. She didn't like crowds, but I thrived in them and tried to ease her into it. Everyone got a kick out of meeting Remus Lupin's infamous foreign girlfriend. Although she seemed to like meeting everyone; she knew a small fact or two about all of them, more about others. 

            I was apprehensive about Lily, particularly because James would be late because of a Ministry thing his father was taking him to, in hopes of James getting a nice safe job. Where was safe in the Ministry? I didn't know and still don't. Perhaps Mr Potter was thinking of a mesmerising career in the centaur liaison office. But I suppose whatever it was, it was certainly safer than any of James's ideas. 

            Of course, this was very convenient, as it also allowed us to ensure that Remus would be late if they came together, but it also meant that Lily might arrive early with only me to entertain her. 

            Arabella also liked Lily a great deal, and the two of them hit off pretty well, to my relief, although I knew she'd be nagging at me later ("Why did you give her a hard time? She's a lovely girl.") Luckily, Lily also came after a good deal of others had arrived, and she and Anna got along fine as well. I sighed in relief. It had been my one worry of the evening. 

            It turned out Emily was my worst problem. The whole idea of inviting her was a mistake; she was the poster child for anti-socialism and couldn't hold a conversation with a small crowd to save her life. Furthermore, while she kept up a joking sort of rivalry with me, the distaste between her and Peter was very real and still alive. It was _hilarious_, actually, when they stepped up to the dartboard that I had pegged up to a tree near the side porch. They were ridiculous about it, positively staring off, stretching their throwing arms, glaring, and getting generally pumped up – it was most definitely out to town. 

            (As a side note, it turned out all that was unnecessary. I teased Emily about how she would have to improve her aim a _lot_ before she left for Auror training next week, while Peter had fairly good hand-eye co-ordination. Emily took it as the greatest shame she would ever bear, and kicked bad-temperedly at the dirt, while Peter really did rub it in. Good grief.) 

            But if Arabella liked Anna and loved Lily, she absolutely adored Emily. She thought she was the best thing since Breaking Charms on mainstream broomsticks, I swear. I suspect a large part of that had to do with the fact that Emily made no bones about hiding the fact that she adored Bella's meatballs. When Emily ate, she forgot to chew. It wasn't the greatest matters, but with her inhaling of Bella's cooking, and articulations, manners, peculiarities, and wit, Emily had a fan. 

            "Is that the girl you've been complaining about all these years?" Arabella hissed to me on the side.

            I nodded. 

            "The one that has a thing for you?"

            "Yeah" – reluctantly. 

            "You could do worse, Sirius, far, far worse. She's a lovely girl."

            "Even though she eats like – "

            "Quiet, lad. You're no better." 

            "Grand." I saw James suddenly appear behind Arabella, with a smirk. Mr Potter began to talk with Arabella; I took the opportunity of her distraction to give him a warning glare of death. He shrugged casually, while Remus looked as if he was trying to digest this shocking piece of information.

            "Why didn't you tell us?" James chuckled. 

            "Oh Great Brainy Twelve N.E.W.T.s Potter, shut thy mouth," I ordered. "_This_ is why. How'd it go?"

            I expected to hear "boring"; James and Remus, who had probably already been told, looked sober. "The Parliament of Law Enforcement is deciding whether to allow Aurors to use Unforgivables on suspect Death Eaters." 

            My jaw dropped open. "Something about that does _not_ sound right, I mean – " 

            I was cut off as Remus gasped, gawked, and turned to me (why do they always instantly suspect me?), and then James: "I lost the bet. Should've known you were in on this, Prongs."

            "What's that?" James asked, confused at the change of subject, but then grinned knowingly. "Ah."

            "What bet?" I asked. 

            Anna was chatting with Lily, Miranda, and Mina Hopkins under one of the billowy-branched trees on the lawn; Remus was staring as if trying to decide if vision were playing tricks on him. Many people hushed knowingly as they spotted his eyes fixed on her. 

            The sudden quiet prompted the girls to look up, and Anna's gaze hit Remus quickly. She grinned wildly and ran straight to Remus, knocking his breath out with a fierce hug. 

            "Gosh, R.J., I think you're actually a full three inches taller than me," she said happily, letting him go, and blushing. "Sorry. Got carried away – it's fantastic to see you, Remus – "

            "No, no, that's okay," I assured her quickly. "You two can just keep right on doing your thing." 

            Remus shot me a short glare but otherwise I went ignored as he turned to Anna. "What're you doing here, Anna?" 

            James smacked him in the back of the head. "Moony, you eejit. 'What're you doing here?' That was completely improper. Miss Holtry, this is your cue to stomp off, sulk, and feel depressed and unloved. You shouldn't have to take that abuse." He smiled charmingly and bowed, Ministry brat manners all up front. "I'm James, by the way, Miss Anna, James Potter. And I apologise for my friend Mr Lupin's appalling behaviour."

            "Potter, James Potter," she mused, and I laughed. "Nice to meet you, James, heard a lot about you." 

            Remus gave James a similar glare. In most cases his glares were quite effective, but James and I had immunity to them by this point. "That's how they did it, didn't they, Anna? I was just going to say that they had abducted you, but I'm wrong. They simply used their treacherous charm and lured you over here. You poor girl, you must've had a traumatic time of it." 

            Anna laughed. "I was having a fine time, thanks. But I think I just learned my first lesson in handling these two – never, ever get too excited in front of them." 

            Very, very intelligent young lady. 

            "By the way," James whispered to me, "the bet – Moony noticed you were hiding something, and I said that you'd probably blow it by the 1st of July." 

            "Remus, you need mental help if you accepted that," I said. "I hope you just lost a lot on it."

            He shrugged sheepishly, listening to Anna more intently than me. James and I left them to their reunion, soon finding a makeshift game of Quidditch up. Some clever people had brought broomsticks, but were not bright enough to think to bring more for everyone. This was the first major problem of that day. 

            Arabella solved it. She bid Mr Potter good-bye and walked deliberately over to the squabbling would-be players. "Sirius," she said pointedly, loudly, crossly, and horribly, "do I hear an _disa_gree_ment_?" 

            She did not. Arabella wasn't always out of it; her words caused everyone to quiet and resolve things in a manner miraculous. Might not have understood kids, but she understood authority. And the worth of putting up some shielding charms so the neighbours wouldn't notice the flying broomsticks. 

            The most amusing thing was flying with Muggle clothes. Because nearly all our neighbours didn't have a clue about the wizarding world and Arabella and I were to keep it that way, I had warned everyone in advance that they had better dress like Muggles. Several people did a fairly good job of it, too – thank goodness, however, that James _did_ have some help, or he might have shown up in a clown costume. 

            Some were just as bad… Dina Fawcett and Bernard Freed, Ravenclaw cousins, wizard blood through and through – let's just say they should get points for effort. Dina had showed up in a swimsuit and had simply painted her witch boots (well, okay, so I wasn't complaining) and Bernard's clothes, frankly, had gone out of fashion a couple of centuries ago. He had taken his clue from Shakespeare, I think. In any case, I laughed shamelessly. Until Arabella, Lily, and Emily started giving me those Warning Looks that come so naturally to females. 

            Fine, then, I thought bad-temperedly, and turned to Miranda, who, I felt sure, would support me. After all, she was my girlfriend, the one who had made me suffer at Peter's needling for the past two months. 

            But Miranda was fussy, irritated, and bored. Under normal circumstances, my job was to cater to her, make her happy, and then slip off. That was how it went. Today, though, everyone I could slip off to were conveniently detained by either his or her own dates or Quidditch, and in the company of some of the other girls, Miranda seemed rather… limp. Thus my patience was wearing down. 

            "Hey, Mir, let's see if we can snatch a broom to play," I said, with a pitiable amount of plaintiveness in my voice. 

            She had been staring off to a grassy field dotted with flowers and it took a few moments for her to come to and turn to me. "What's that?"

            Grit teeth. Try not to strangle her on the spot. Be calm. "I'm going to go join the game."

            If she had even said "Aren't you going to stay?", angry or not, I wouldn't have continued. But as her response was "Fine", I glanced over to the group of former classmates as well. 

            Lily and Anna were on brooms. Lily was outstripping Michael Boot and Godfrey Nickels over the closest kotchum acre with a huge grin. Anna had slipped off; Remus dived down to her. She had already stood and was brushing grass off her outfit. Luckily, she had gone for all-out simplicity with a white linen shirt and denim jeans. Seeing Remus, she grinned and gave him a hard shove in the chest before laughing and stealing his broom. Emily was with three of the boys, all playing a complicated chase-and-catch game with a spare Quaffle. 

            They were so… vivid. Alive. Active. Strong. Independent. 

            I felt more edgy than ever. James needn't get _all _the luck in this instance. Emily wanted to go out with me? Well, she would get her wish. At least she wasn't about to bore me. 

            "Mir, it's not working out between us."

            Miranda and I had both heard similar words countless times for the past few years, but she still flared up. A second ago, she didn't care. Now she fought me bitterly. 

            "Let's keep this quiet, okay?" I sighed. "We don't have to spoil it for everyone."

            Since Miranda certainly wasn't going to advertise this, in case the version of events got twisted my way, she huffed off to take things out on Mina Hopkins, who had until recently been Miranda and Lily's dorm mate and was pretty much Miranda's verbal punching bag when she got too out of it.

            The whole Emily-thing didn't go quite as planned. Although I noticed she was a bit too eager when I pulled her away from Quaffle tag. What would you say if I asked you out? I asked casually. Well, she said, that would depend on if I were serious or if I was just trying to have one over on her again. Considering this, I finally said yeah, it was all just a big gag, losing my nerve. Emily rolled her eyes and half-yelled that I had pulled her away from her game for one of my stupid jokes. 

            "Oh, come on, it's not a big deal," I said, with the extra of a charming smile. 

            Emily glared, bright grey eyes icy. "Shut _up_, Sirius. How can anyone stand you when all you do is annoy them?"

            "I notice no one can stand you. Unless you're buying." I hadn't gotten this sort of childish row since the girls I dated were fourteen. It was rather fun. 

            "Maybe I don't _want_ them to stand me."

            "Fine then!" I shot back, getting somewhat upset with her total unreasonableness. "Go off and talk to the little _voices_, Emily." This was a reference to her yearlong joke that little Atlantian voices spoke to her in her head. Which was actually sort of amusing. 

            She had huffed off directly after her last comment, but now halted, turned around, and smiled wickedly at me. "You're just jealous, Black, 'cause the little voices talk to _me_." 

            The implications were so funny that I just had to grin, and then was hit by a laughter attack. 

            See what I mean? She was addicting. I never knew what to expect from her. Other girls I had known were nice, even unique, and as I said, Lily and Anna were certainly cool, but they were predictable. 

            I didn't know what to predict, so pushed on. "Em!" I called suddenly.

            "Em's a letter. My _name _is Emily." 

            "What if I was serious?"

            "But aren't you?"

            I groaned. Only I was allowed to use that. "Bad one. What if I were not joking about a date?" 

            Emily turned again, thoughtful. "Hmm. Well." She was struck out of composure. I didn't mind watching it unfold. "Ask James for the time." 

            I blinked, not understanding that one. Emily was walking away at a quick clip, leaving me bemused. I ran to her.

            "What's that?"

            "You asked for the time. I don't have a watch." Emily was not the world's greatest liar either, even though she was still half-walking, half-jogging, and wasn't facing me. 

            "Kertcher, you know damn well what I asked. Would you go out on a date with me?" 

            She broke into a run. "What's that, Black? Can't hear you."

            "I'm not begging you!" I shouted. "Want this or not?"

            A giggle. "Catch me and ask!" 

            We created a spectacle, for sure. Zoomed right past the games, running about, and polka dots – you know, when there's little huddles of people gossiping? We stomped right over the tiny pink flowers and sun-scorched grass; past (as you shall soon see, unfortunately, not quite _past_) the side kotchum fields, on the edge of where the grass was no longer cut and gave way to forest. I heard cheering, whistling, and various catcalls behind us. 

            She had a head start, but I chased her down easily – she was not athletic; I was. The heat also got her, as she was sensitive to humidity and "sunny" was the understatement of the day. Finally she slowed, grasping at one of those painful stitches she had in her side, and I grabbed her shoulder like some of those clichéd crime pictures. 

            "Caught you," I said, with barely a gasp. "So what d'you say?"

            "My side hurts. Sorry?"

            "No. Do I get a date or not?" I flashed another smile. "I certainly worked for it, didn't I?"

            "What d'you call a date?"

            "A night out. Catch the Knight Bus to London, perhaps stray out of the wizarding alleys to see what sort of freaks we can see in the Muggle world, quick dinner, you know. Whatever you want. Quidditch game, maybe. Haven't you ever dated before?" 

            She avoided that question by collapsing and falling to a nearby tree for support. "Sounds fab."

            "You sound thick when you try to sound cool." 

            "I know." Emily didn't sound abashed, either. Just matter of fact. "I cut my foot too. This was stupid of me."

            "Lay down. I know a healing charm." Plenty of them. And the cut was far shallower that what I was used to. 

            "Thanks. What do you have that hurts like that?"

            "Kotchum, didn't you know? You must have crossed a corner. And still you got caught – you're pathetic, Kertcher. Is it a date?" 

            "You're dating Miranda."

            "Not anymore." I leaned over her, meeting her eye to eye.

            "Are you going with me to pay her back?"

            This stopped me. Was I? Show up the most popular girl by dating the least? 

            "I think you're more interesting. Mir and I were at each other's throats for months; you're not why I broke up with her."

            She stood up. "I don't know."

            "You know what I know?" I tugged a long piece of grass. "You're in a damn good position for me to tickle you." Actually, she was in a damn good position for me to rape her, and from the flash of fear in her eyes, I think that had suddenly occurred to her. But I was doing nothing of the sort. "You look like the ticklish type." 

            Emily couldn't hide a smile. 

            "A-ha! Got you, Kertcher." I flung the grass aside and attacked her stomach with my fingers. Emily giggled instantly and was soon hooting and howling. "So, yes or no, I'm not patient, Alphabet."

            "Alphabet?" she managed.

            "Your nickname is a letter, Em. So I'm going to call you Alphabet."

            "What – sort of – nickname – is that?" 

            "Aw, I expected someone like Anna Holtry to say that. By English birthright, we're bound to make up nicknames, more unusual the better.            And it's better than Emily."

            "_Hey_!" she cried, though in protest against the insult of her name of the increase in tickling I couldn't tell. "Fine… it'll be fun… but it's nothing serious and I'm not calling it a date!"

            I quit tickling. "I _am_ Sirius, at the very least, as you so brilliantly pointed out, and what do you intend to call it?" 

            "A trip to London."

            "You like the city?"

            "No. It's horrid." 

            "I love it. I'm going to live there in a few years."

            "Yeah, well, you're mental." Emily began to push herself up. 

            "But I'm not the one with little voices in my head." 

            "Lay off the little voices." She brushed grass stains off her cobalt skirt, having dressed up a bit, although of course it did nothing. "With their help I'm going to make up a nickname for you and you're going to hate it. Worse than Alphabet, even."

            "Alphabet, _nothing _is worse than yours. Come on. They're going to think we're making out or something if we don't get back soon." Emily's face turned a little pink but tacitly agreed. 

            I guess I did have some Divination skills and should have taken the subject; as we got back, I heard Godfrey Nickels shout "You two go off and find a room!"

            "Honestly." Emily glared at him. "You keep quiet and I'll say nothing about Alexandra Donnellson. Deal?"

            It was. 

            "Furthermore, we are not going out," she declared. "And I still hate his very bones."

            Yeah, right, I reflected. James was grinning at me, in a rather superior way I didn't quite like. Emily and I separated – I to the Quidditch, her to wherever. They didn't accept her back into the game.

            *

            Sounds like fun, doesn't it? As if I should have had the time of my life. Well, I can't complain, it was certainly a very enjoyable day, but the ending was going to affect Sandrybrook Road Farm for years. 

            It was Arabella who showed me, furiously. Remus and I had been searching the taller grass near the side fields for a lot of lost Quaffles, although admittedly we were chucking them at another when the other's back was turned more than we were finding them. He was staying the night, due to my conniving. James had to go with his dad to _another _Ministry thing, and Peter was needed at home – but Remus's sister Athena and her husband, what's-his-name, Dick Englebert, didn't really _need_ him; he was just convenient for them. And unlike the rest of us, Remus's independence didn't come from completing school but until his eighteenth birthday, in November. So I had lied to Athena and told her it was an overnight event and Remus wouldn't be back until the next day – oh, and he was helping with cleanup (_not_ a lie!) so he'd be back mid-afternoon the day after.   

            (Yes, Remus was angry for the first five minutes for my manipulating when I sprang this on him after everyone else left, but I knew very well he wasn't about to Floo Athena and tell her he was coming a day early… and, as you can see, I was also right. If the matter isn't life-or-death, I usually am. Right, that is.)

            "_Sirius – Fidel – Black_!" 

            Arabella got troubled easily, and had long since belonged to the Using Full Names Is An Effective Way of Showing Annoyance, but I could see that this time, it really was something quite important, and sensed I was in major trouble. I froze and exchanged a worried glance with Remus. 

            "Come here!" Arabella barked, pushing aside grass and weeds with the fury of… well… a "woman scorned". (I don't know why, but I have a bit of a Shakespeare obsession.) I hesitated before taking a meek step or two forward. She abruptly seemed to see Remus for the first time, although she had aided and abetted in his staying. "You too," she said shortly. "And neither of you lose any of those Quaffles in the process – ten Galleons the each of them! And that money'll have to be better spent on _this_, believe _me_!"

            She led us to the side of the kotchum field nearest to the forest. I instantly knew what must have happened – it was where Emily and I had run. My heart started doing flip-flops in my chest and nearly came up through my throat. I of all people should have known to be more careful…

            Her bag, heavy with rocks she was clearing from around the kotchum field, was shoved into Remus's hands while hers turned my shoulder roughly to face the trampled kotchum. 

            "What the – " Arabella stopped, breathed, and continued. Somehow she was concerned about me not picking up swearing. Heh. "Sirius, you gave me your word that no one was going to get into the kotchum – what's this? Do either of you know what happened here?"

            I could barely answer. It was not only fear of her wrath – that would pass – but dismay. Kotchum is the most delicate and temperamental plant in the world.

            "Well?" 

            "It – It must have been during some of the games," Remus spoke up, rather quietly and subdued, after I still had not thought up a thing to say. "A couple of people were using the Quaffles, running, and it – got out of hand… Sirius was in the air when this happened, I think – weren't you, Sirius?" 

            It was practically a plea. Trying to talk when Arabella's anger is thickening the oxygen around you has caused irate landowners and debt-collectors to choke. 

            But then again, somewhere deep in my mind, I was amused. Remus knew as well as I did that Emily and I had plowed through there, and just one or two hours ago he had been growling at me for lying to Athena Englebert. 

            Closer to the fore of my mind was the conviction that I must tell the truth. "No – it was me, 'Bella – I told the rest of them, just like you said. I forgot for a moment when I was… erm… running." I finished, tacking the last word on lamely. 

            "Were you wearing shoes, Sirius?"

            Remus, who had never really aced Herbology, looked confused, but for those who also don't understand (and also think she was overreacting), it was a valid question. Shoes have the germs of everywhere you step on them, and kotchum is so sensitive that the little bit of essence can contaminate the whole field. When he work in the kotchum fields, we have to go barefoot – and wash our feet right by the edge of them before we step over the fence or row of rocks separating kotchum territory from the rest of the wild world. 

            "Yeah," I said in a very low voice. "I think so." _Damn_, why couldn't I ever keep my head? Maybe the little voices wouldn't hurt much at all…

            Arabella swelled for a moment in rage, and then deflated in disappointment. Our budget was so carefully set up that even the loss of our smallest kotchum field could disrupt it. I wondered if we'd have to sacrifice even more land. All because of one moment of foolishness. 

            I _hated_ the responsibility of having every action affecting our entire future. Trust me, I was looking forward to leaving that barn. 

            "Go on and get those Quaffles. I don't want you out when it gets dark. Sirius, you start thinking right now about how to make up the difference – although," she gave a small sigh, "I suppose it's just as much my fault, letting you lot play there, moving the kotchum up in the most-used place. It would have worked just fine in the lower field."

            "Er, excuse me, Arabella," Remus said timorously, only daring to speak because of her last two sentences, I'd bet, "but how does that affect the kotchum? I mean, it doesn't seem like much…"

            "Doesn't seem like much!" Arabella burst out, again puffing up in fury. Remus and I both flinched. She proceeded to give the same explanation I just did, but with much more emotion, and then, just when she seemed to have calmed down, shouted: "And _you_! Covering up for him like that! I'll have _no_ liars in this house, I'll have you know, Remus Jobey Lupin! Hear me well, don't you _dare_ ever pull a stunt like that again."

            "I don't think I will," Remus whispered as we set off to Quaffle-Hunt again. 

            I shrugged. "Her bark's worse than her bite, you know that." Then I winced. Bad analogy. 

            "Does she always get that upset?"

            "Moony, 'Bella's a lamb most of the time, she just occasionally goes a bit mad whenever something big happens. She's more angry with the situation than us." 

            "So you don't that was a little… extreme?" 

            "You heard about the kotchum – yeah, maybe a little."

            "Excuse me," said a slightly _too_ sweet voice behind us. We half-jumped and turned, guilt written all over our faces, I'm sure. "I'm sorry to hold you up some more and interrupt, but you still have my bag, Remus." 

            "Oh." Remus glanced down at it, catching his bearings, and gave it to her. "I'm sorry. Didn't notice."  

            "That's all right." Arabella smiled calmly. "I never get upset over something as minor as that, my display of temper just a moment ago aside, and I trust you not to abuse my good nature." 

            I stifled a chuckle at her choice of words. 

            She turned to me, effectively ending my amusement. "Fidel, little faithful," she said musingly. I had the grace to look embarrassed. 

            Arabella then looked over both of us, as we tried not to fidget. She sure knew how to play her intimidation games. Finally, she gave a slight, benevolent smile – _I have shown you two mercy and you know it! _"You'll get on with those Quaffles now, then?" 

            We nodded. Fervently. 

            "At the very least," she nodded to Remus, obviously still miffed with me, "it was a nice gesture, standing up for a friend." 

            "Sirius does the same." 

            Oh thanks, Moony, I thought sarcastically. Just get me in trouble too, will you? 

            "I know." Her smile was more genuine now. "It's the only reason I'm letting it slide. Now hurry up, because I'm going to bed at nine o'clock, and I don't care what you do afterwards, but you can't make a noise doing it. Oh, and preferably, it's legal and not life-threateningly dangerous." 

            Remus and I exchanged a look of incredulity. "Well," I quipped, "that eliminates ninety-nine point nine percent of our regular activities." 

            **TBC (in the next chapter, which takes a short rest from the past narrative to present…)**


End file.
